The Purpose Of Social Marketing Campaigns And How Plastic Change Can Use Them

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have been if it did not include additives. Lastly, the packaging is a good initiative to try to solve the huge problem of plastic recyclability. Since the container is only made of minimum 50 percent reusable plastic there is room for improvement when designing new containers in the future. In summary, the product is a step in the right direction to a more sustainable solution, but the partnership between Naturli’ and Plastic Change has not reached its full potential within this aspect.

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One of Plastic Change’s strongest weapons when it comes to attaining its vision is in pursuing social marketing campaigns in any form. In this case, the campaign is based on the strategic partnership between Plastic Change and Naturli’. Before initiating a campaign, the organisation must consider what the purpose of the campaign is and what the end goal is. In this strategic partnership, several end goals exist:

1. Earn money based on the sales of Naturli’ Hakket

2. Introduce sustainable packaging to create a long-lasting change 3. Increase brand awareness of the organisation and its cause

When having multiple end goals, it can be difficult to see if a campaign is successful. In this case, none of the end goals is conflicting which makes it more likely for the parties to achieve every goal. The following section contains an analysis of each goal and how Plastic Change can use these goals to market itself properly.

1. Earn money based on the sales of Naturli’ Hakket

Even though Naturli’ Hakket is not a meat product it is comparable to meat when it comes to sales. According to Politiken, within the first two months, Naturli’ Hakket has gained 3 percent of the total meat sold in Dansk Supermarked’s stores. As stressed in the introduction, the original goal was to achieve 5 percent within the first three to four years, which indicates a good start for Naturli’ Hakket in the Danish market. According to Naturli’s website, it has donated 60,000 DKK to NGOs since the 1^st of January 2018. However, only Plastic Change is on the list of NGOs Naturli’ has donated money to. It is therefore assumed that all 60,000 DKK is donated to Plastic Change through the collaboration on the product, Naturli’ Hakket. It is thereby deduced that 300,000 pieces of Naturli’ Hakket have been sold within the first quarter of 2018 with a revenue of 7,500,000 DKK in total (Appendix 8). Plastic Change has therefore earned 60,000 DKK within the first three months of 2018. According to the expert in partnerships within sustainability, KJ, he stresses that the donation of 0.20 DKK is not that much nor sustainable in the longer run (Appendix 1).

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According to the questionnaire 29.9 percent of the 164 respondents who bought the product, bought it because they saw the product on social media and wanted to try it out (Appendix 9).

This indicates that many probably purchased it for the first time as a trail to see whether it was something they like. This naturally increases the sales numbers, which is why it could be interesting to see how the sales are going in a year from the launch. In the interview with the consumer, AG, it was mentioned that it was due to great media and social media coverage that he bought the product in the first place (Appendix 3). This statement, alongside the questionnaire, indicates that people may have bought it at first as a trial.

2. Introduce sustainable packaging to create a long-lasting change

The second goal is to create more sustainable packaging to create a long-lasting change for consumers. The packaging is, as already mentioned, of minimum 50 percent recycled plastic, which is a start before making it of 100 percent recycled plastic. According to the interview with AG, the packaging had an impact when he chose the product at the counter. However, he also stressed that considering which material food product packaging is made from can start a revolution within the food industry (Appendix 3). According to Plastic Change itself, it mentioned in the interview that if it had had more time to develop and consult, the container could probably have been 100 percent recycled (Appendix 5).

3. Increase brand awareness of the organisation and cause

The last goal of the partnership from Plastic Changes’ point of view was to increase brand awareness of both the organisations and the cause they are promoting. According to Plastic Change itself: “It is a fun exposure in connection with the product, meaning that when one buys a product our logo is on the product. It is really nice. There is some brand awareness and brand building in it (…)” (Appendix 5). This indicates that Plastic Change is satisfied with the brand awareness it gets as an outcome of the partnership. However, in the questionnaire when the researchers asked whether people were aware of Plastic Change being a part of the product and that Plastic Change receives 0.20 DKK every time the product was sold, only 5.8 percent of the respondents knew. That is 24 respondents out of 411 respondents who were aware of the partnership. It can be argued that the number is too low especially since it is one for the goals for Plastic Change to increase its brand awareness with this partnership. If we change the

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parameters and exclude all the respondents who have not bought the product, the numbers change a bit. According to the research, 11.7 percent of the customers who purchased Naturli’

Hakket know that Plastic Change gets a donation every time one product is sold. From this, it can be argued that even with the consumers who have purchased the product, low brand awareness is an issue. So, Plastic Change’s assumptions and beliefs of the extent of brand awareness it gets, and what the consumers actually see are two different outcomes. This can indicate that Plastic Change might not have used its communication and marketing opportunities well enough to achieve the goal of raising the brand awareness of the organisation.

How can the experiences gained be used in partnerships in the future?

If we are to sum up the three shared goals and how the goals can be used in the future, the experiences Plastic Change has gained are highly useful when it comes to establishing partnerships in the future. First of all, the researchers argue that the idea and model of making the donation to Plastic Change dependent on sales volume is a good idea. Since the donation is depended on sales volume it can be deduced that Plastic Change could impact the sales volume by pushing out the product on social media. For example, Plastic Change has not shared a single post about Naturli’ Hakket on social media. By doing this it could have spread the awareness about the product to a larger audience, which could encourage more consumers to purchase the product, in the end increasing capital for Plastic Change. This could be an aspect to develop further in future partnerships. This makes it possible for Plastic Change to push out the product itself as it could have done in the partnership with Naturli’ instead of just being a part of the product development and then when the product is to be launched the partnership ends.

On the other hand, making the donation sales volume dependant can be a good choice for the commercial company since it automatically should activate Plastic Change to engage thoroughly throughout the entire product lifecycle. However, in the partnership between Plastic Change and Naturli’, Plastic Change has not used its voice well enough to spread knowledge of the product.

When it comes to introducing more sustainable solutions and long-lasting changes, the minimum 50 percent recycled plastic container is a good start. According to the interview with

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Plastic Change, the organisation feared it could enter a shitstorm since the container was not of 100 percent recycled plastic. HHH stated that Plastic Change had prepared internal FAQs if the press or people on social media did approach the organisation (Appendix 5). With all this in mind, instead of Plastic Change being afraid of the reactions to the container only being a minimum 50 percent solution, it should instead have approached it proactively. Plastic Change should have told the story of it being a new start of plastic packaging for food products, it would set a new standard and consumers would require other food producers to follow suit.

Finally, when it comes to brand awareness in terms of partnerships, Plastic Change and the partner should align more on shared marketing efforts. A way to solve this is by using the owned channels Plastic Change and Naturli’ have i.e. social media. Since the product was launched at the beginning of 2018, Plastic Change has not mentioned the partnership or product once on Facebook (which is its media with the biggest reach), which can be why the knowledge of the partnership with consumers is low, as seen in the questionnaire. Additionally, Naturli’ has only mentioned the collaboration with Plastic Change on Facebook once immediately after the product was launched. If Plastic Change is to succeed with commercial partnerships in this form, the organisation is advised to use the channels owned to create as much awareness as possible, to push both its name and its cause out there.