Less On The Nose, More On The Butt
In 2015, Fast Company shared the story of a remarkable creative community strategy developed by a small English marketing group
Litter had spiraled out of control in central London, costing municipal authorities over a million Pounds a year to clean up one street alone. To change that street, they changed the story, and showed how great #CorporateStorytelling alters perception, recognition, and personal action.
Decades of simple, direct signage urging residents of Villiers Street – a crowded jaunt between two popular train stations – to discard their waste in garbage receptacles had failed. In particular, young men tossed cigarette butts at alarming, damaging, and costly rates. Enter Hubbub, a social activism charity and local solutions expert who flipped the asinine narrative. Asking people to throw their butts in the trash had been the wrong message – asking people to vote with their butts turned out to be the right message.
Hubbub built a basic pole-mounted metal box with two bins, painted it bright yellow (or pink), and affixed a plexiglass face. Smokers could decide which bin to drop their spent cigarette into as a vote for their preferred sports viewing activity, either the Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix or the US Tennis Open. Butts piled in the bins, the streets instantly got cleaner, and Londoners’ littering behaviors suddenly shifted from oblivion to opinion. All by telling a better story.
Other ‘Vote With Your Butt’ options included “Messi or Ronaldo”, the power to “fly or be invisible”, and pineapple on a pizza ("yuck or yum”). This simple chance to express a preference, empower active decision-making, and inspire individual investment cleaned up cigarette litter across the city by 73% (Ellipsis impact report, 2021). Today you'll find Ballot Bins in 43 countries around the world, collecting an estimated 15 million cigarette butts a year. Story matters. Story alters.
Want to create your own Ballot Bin? Check out this website.
Think of this inspired solution to a perpetual problem the next time you deliver a talk to an event audience, lead your internal team, or pitch to a customer. When we tell someone what to do, they won't. When we urge someone to buy what we have to sell, they turn away. When we explain why our way is the best way, they'll run in the opposite direction. But when we engage others with our storytelling and their empowerment, they'll crave the chance to express their voice – every time.
Bottom Line
Are you faced with helming a project that's just not coming along as you hoped it would? Are you asking for a change in performance or productivity from your employees – or family members – that just isn't happening? Even if the “right” path seems obvious to you, it may not be quite so clear to them. Get creative. Build some hubbub.
Adapt your #CorporateStorytelling in a way that motivates others to reach your successful outcome with you. A fresh approach and altered thinking may just get those you lead – or those you love – to move their butts in the right direction.
