Southland's creative rubbish communication

Aotearoa New Zealand has a nationwide waste strategy (Te rautaki para) to be a lower-emission, lower-waste society, built upon a circular economy by 2050. This means WasteNet Southland (a joint enterprise of the Invercargill City Council, Southland District Council and Gore District Council) needs to deliver ongoing comms about changes to their rubbish and recycling services, and promote waste minimisation and resource recovery in a way that generates real behavioural change.

But WasteNet was not a revered voice and the region itself had the country’s worst waste minimisation results. So we developed the ‘Rethink Rubbish’ platform to simplify and summarise the mission at hand. And instead of the authoritative WasteNet brand directly delivering comms, international research proves mascots to be effective in exercises such as this. So Rethink Rubbish is fronted by Bitz McGee, a fun and loveable character who has been specifically created out of recycled and repurposed items to be the very essence of rethinking rubbish. The inclusion of a swede as Bitz’s heart uniquely ties the mascot to Southland.

The platform’s colour palette borrows from New Zealand's universal waste management colours—bright, bold primaries—with a modern refinement. And the ‘Rethink Rubbish’ logo has an optical illusion aspect, symbolising a shift in perspective towards New Zealand's goal of a circular economy. 

Take a look at other councils’ approaches and you’ll see this is a category desperately lacking interesting comms worth engaging with. Despite their messages being critically important to be remembered, everything is bland and boring. Bitz McGee and the Rethink Rubbish platform stand out a mile, not only from other council comms but within a busy marketing landscape overall. It’s bright and fun, and uses simple language and concepts to help ensure all members of the public have a chance to see the communication, enjoy it, remember it and act on it.