Household brands are running the worst outdoor advertising in the world – litter. Discarded packaging is, in fact, negative outdoor advertising, damaging the brand in the eyes of everyday people. This comes from a study published in the Journal of Business Research and validated by Nielsen, that shows when a brand appears as litter, people are prepared to pay less for it. Dentsu Creative Aotearoa and JCDecaux have turned that into a campaign, Reverse Media Schedules, for ocean rubbish removal organisation, Sea Cleaners. The campaign presents the idea that when a brand’s bottles, cans or wrappers become litter, it is running a damaging outdoor ad.  

The initiative, developed by Dentsu Creative and Denstu Media Aotearoa, with advisory partners, Finch, and audience data experts, Nielsen, combines litter audits, audience data and media modelling to estimate where branded waste appears, how many people are likely to see it, and the potential impact on consumer perception and purchasing behaviour. It also identifies hotspot locations, benchmarks brands against others in their category and estimates the value created by ongoing clean-up work. Businesses gain access to dashboards and reporting tools that track these insights and show the impact of supporting litter removal.

The campaign is a new way for brands to think about sustainability. Rather than treating clean-up as a charitable activity, it reframes it as a media investment that can help protect brand value while it also showing environmental responsibility.

Research conducted by Nielsen surveying 1,000 people across 124 coastal destinations found that 17.2% of people could recall specific brands they had seen as litter, days after visiting coastal areas, while 75% said they would view a brand more favourably if it supported clean-up efforts. Brands in New Zealand, Heineken, Export and Monteith’s, have invested in Reverse Media Schedules, committing a valuable financial contribution to help expand ocean clean-up efforts.

Over the past 23 years, Sea Cleaners has removed more than 21 million litres of rubbish from New Zealand’s beaches and waterways, growing from a single volunteer in a kayak into a full-time operation with a fleet of ten boats.

Hayden Smith, founding trustee of Sea Cleaners, stated, “The hardest part of the job isn’t picking up the litter, it’s the constant hustle required to raise funds and keep our boats in the water. This tool gives us a reason to talk to dozens of companies and a concrete business value that we are delivering for them.”

Kurt Malcolm, head of trading platforms at JCDecaux, added, “Removing the worst outdoor ads allows us to deliver on our sustainability commitments, but also our commitment to iconic, impactful out of home advertising and making sure our clients are only seen in the right way, in the right places.”

Brett Colliver, CCO of dentsu New Zealand, commented, “Good for the planet and for business. It’s unfortunate that those two things don’t intersect more often, but that’s why we feel that Sea Cleaners and JCDecaux have unlocked something powerful in ‘Reverse Media Schedules’. And what’s really exciting is that it’s a model that can be scaled around the world.”

John Mescall, global chief creative partner, Dentsu Creative, added, “The responsibility for litter lies not just with the public and companies creating packaging. It also lies with us, the advertisers who help those products become so popular. With media, creative and data being so intimately linked within our business, dentsu is uniquely positioned to create an innovation like this and it’s a fantastic demonstration of a key dentsu philosophy, Sanpo Yoshi – good for people, good for business, good for society.”

Credits:

Clients: Sea Cleaners, JCDecaux, DB Breweries Limited
Creative Agency: Dentsu Creative Aotearoa 
Media Agency: Dentsu Media Aotearoa
Production Company: The Post Office
Strategic Advisors: Finch
Research & Audience Measurement: Nielsen