Brief Explanation

During The We Compost Weekend, people’s organic waste became a compostable currency that they could spend throughout Auckland. We encouraged Aucklanders to spend a week collecting their food scraps at home in specially designed compostable bags that were distributed in mailboxes and given out at over 40 businesses. When the weekend arrived, people could exchange their bags of apple cores and banana peels as payment for goods and services like coffees, meals, clothing and haircuts.

The Brief

Over 40% of the waste Auckland sends to landfill is organic. This would be worth almost $20 million a year if it was turned into compost. We are throwing away a valuable resource. We Compost is a waste collection business that aims to divert organic waste from landfill. To do so, more people need to go from seeing food scraps as a waste product, into something of value. So for one weekend, we turned Auckland’s food waste into a currency. People could collect their scraps at home in specially designed bags and use them to buy goods and services.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The campaign helped change the way Aucklanders see their food waste. On the weekend, Aucklanders exchanged over 400 bags of food scraps an hour for over $10,000 worth of goods. In the month following, We Compost's collection business increased by over 20% and now includes large-scale operations like hospitals, shopping malls and football stadiums. From 2016, we're teaming up with Auckland Council to start organic collections across the city's suburbs Due to interest from the public and other city councils, The We Compost Weekend is now set to become an annual, nationwide event, meaning millions of tonnes of organic waste will be kept out of New Zealand’s landfills.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

We Compost collects organic waste from businesses throughout Auckland. For their business to grow, their existing clients need to produce more food scraps and new businesses need to start composting. So the more people who see the value in composting, the better. We Compost’s existing clients were asked to sign up as Official Scrap Traders for the We Compost Weekend. A month before the weekend, we started the conversation online about the city’s waste habits. Those businesses that signed up were given material to promote the weekend through their social media. The week prior, the businesses were given our compostable bags to distribute and promotional material to display in-store. In addition to this, we distributed bags in letterboxes around the participating businesses. As word spread on social and news media, more businesses came on board for the weekend. When the weekend arrived, we had over 40 Official Scrap Traders.