Environment Bay of Plenty

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

Rotorua has the worst winter air quality in the North Island. Old and and inefficient domestic fires are the leading cause, releasing poisonous particulates into Rotorua’s air, contributing to over 10 local deaths each year. Environment Bay of Plenty needed to encourage local people to burn dry wood and switch to cleaner forms of heating appliances where possible, as the first stage in a five year programme to clean up Rotorua’s air.

THE MARKETING CHALLENGE

Few people in Rotorua were aware of the air pollution in their city. It is an invisibly problem, that appears victimless. Therefore our marketing challenge at v. marketing was to make this message personally relevant and emotionally compelling to gain attention and create a reason for people to want to change.

THE CONSUMER INSIGHT

We discovered that one in seven New Zealanders has Asthma, children and the elderly are the worst affected, and are directly affected by smoke particulates created by inefficient home fires. Therefore poor air quality affects everyone, especially the most vulnerable people in our community – Children. No one likes to believe their actions can harm others, especially children. Therefore to make the campaign personally and emotionally relevant we wanted to show the victim and the consequences of inefficient domestic fires.

THE CREATIVE SOLUTION

We used the imagery of young boy, with lungs filled with smoke from chimneys with the Choose clean home heating; protect our lungs as the call to action. We also created a logo – Clean Heat, Clean Air, Clean Lungs to show positive re-enforcement of Environment Bay of Plenty’s message.

THE RESULTS

• There was excellent awareness and recall of the campaign message.
  
• 75.3% of people had seen advertising about home heating, many stating ‘Clean Heating’ or ‘Clean Lungs’ in their answers.
  
• People are more aware of what clean home heating is after the campaign
  
• When asked to give an example of clean home heating 56% said heat pump or electric heating, 24% pellet fire and 9.6% new wood burner, 4.7% gas 5.7% didn’t know. (This is the same order was stated on the Direct Mail). Before the campaign on 38% said Heater/ heat pump and gas was higher at 10%.
  
• Most people know what the effects of poor air pollution are.
  
• 80% of people believe poor air quality affects the lungs (esp. those with Asthma) 11% saying it affected the heart and only 10% saying they didn’t know. (Lung/ respiratory health increased by 30%)
  
• 91.4% of people questioned believed they could do something to reduce Rotorua’s air pollution, (8.6% saying they couldn’t do anything)