Gigantic branded, planned and promoted Sunnyvale’s FoodCycle program using behavior change strategies and tactics.

CHALLENGE

After a few years of new food scrap collection service, Sunnyvale wanted to refresh its FoodCycle outreach to address barriers and promote benefits of the program, which uses a split cart design to collect food scraps on one side, and landfilled garbage on the other.

SERVICES

  • Concept Development

  • Graphic Design

  • Photography

  • Video Production

  • Digital Promotion

APPROACH

In 2017, Gigantic helped create the “FoodCycle” program name and brand. In 2020, we developed a multi-touch campaign and series of videos to address the barriers to program participation: lack of understanding of what can be FoodCycled, perceptions of smells and mess, and lack of space. An article in the Horizon newsletter and a separate video promoted the benefits of FoodCycling, and helped residents understand why the program is important way to address climate change. This video starred actual residents who shared their motivations for using the program. A pilot cart tag campaign tested a norming message vs. a barriers message to see if one was more effective than the other. In 2021, Gigantic created a new food scrap recycling video for apartment and condo residents to help with SB 1383 compliance.

RESULTS

The pilot program showed a significant difference in effectiveness using a barriers-focus tag design that featured tips for reducing mess and odors. The use of a tag also outperformed the control group by 9%. The videos have been viewed over 78,000 times on YouTube, and are used by City staff to help residents understand how to set up and successfully participate in the food scrap recycling program.

Video Series