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Awareness

It's accepted that most people are aware that littering is considered morally 'wrong' or illegal.

Many butt litterers, however, don't consider butts as litter, or think that butt littering matters. Instead they express perceptions such as the 'small size' of butts, that they're 'made of harmless cotton' or are 'eventually swept up by someone else' as to why they think this way.

Other butt litterers acknowledge they know they shouldn't litter but cite 'laziness' as to why they still do. Others dismiss their responsibility of disposing of butts: 'it's not my fault there’s no where to put it'.

These attitudes and perceptions create barriers to behavioural change.

Awareness and behavioural change

Behavioural research demonstrates that it's more likely for people to change once they are aware of a compelling reason to change – why littering is 'wrong', not just that it is – to bring down the barriers created by their currently held attitudes and perceptions.

In 2009, Butt Free Australia conducted research into the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of butt litterers and which messages would compel them to change their behaviour.

The research segmented butt litterers into three groups based on how they feel about their own behaviour: Rationalists, Apologists and Defenders. The research identified the Apologists – those who feel guilty or apologetic about littering but still litter – as the group with the greatest propensity to change.

The research also identified the top five messages – relating to the impacts of butts – that would compel the three groups to change their butt littering behaviour:

Responsible for causing bushfires
Easily washed into waterways
Small kids putting them in their mouths
Dangerous to wildlife
Found in the stomachs of (animals)

Profiles of the three types of litterers, including their awareness of butt littering impacts, can be found in the research summary "Understanding attitudes and behaviour behind cigarette butt littering" in the Tools list below. This research provides a broad understanding of the Australian ‘butt litterer’ and their behaviour, useful for raising awareness.

At a project level, however, an understanding of the target audience in relation to their activity in identified hotspots and the Context the areas fall into is most relevant. Local community demographics will also add to this understanding.

Awareness and Context

Education and advertising messages will be most effective if cigarette butt litter impacts are connected with any values people might attach to the Context in which butts are being littered.

For example, communicating the reason for change 'easily washed into waterways' will resonate most in a beach Context. 'Responsible for causing bushfires' will naturally be relevant to littering in a highways Context.

What do people value about the hotspots you've identified?

Remember to highlight the tendency of cigarette butts to travel through stormwater drains causing displaced impacts – for example, people littering in the city may not realise, but apparently do care, that butts dropped on streets end up impacting waterways.

Audience

Referring back to your Assessment and Context Sections, in particular information from people working in the area and your informal observations, determine if there is an activity that identifies a target audience in your hotspots.

Are people littering as they pass through the area: are they going somewhere in particular – a shopping centre, transport interchange or car park? Are people littering from a stationary position: outside a particular building, cafe or hotel? You can then identify your target audience by their activity in the hotspots, such as shoppers, commuters, office workers or hotel patrons.

If the littering activity is very broad, determine if there's a more clearly identifiable audience in nearby identified hotspots that you may be able to target through partnerships or Education.

Local community demographics

Local demographic data available through many Councils is useful to broadly inform your understanding of the target audience – initially identified by their activity – and message development.

Information such as country of origin, age or gender can help you determine the tone, design and language of communication materials.

Developing project messages

Project messages for public relations, media and advertising are those that will be directly conveyed to your target audience within identified hotspots.

Choose the single most relevant reason for change, depending on the target audience within hotspots identified as contributing to the cigarette butt littering problem.

Whichever reason for change is chosen, some golden rules apply for message development: keep it simple, positive and relevant.

Butt Free Australia has developed guidelines for developing messages, including clarity and 'stickiness' as well as behavioural change influences such as peer pressure and social norms. 'ButtFREE Guidelines – Message Development' can be downloaded from the Tools list below.

Particularly for behavioural change projects, each message needs to be following with the suggestion of what we want our audience to do – a 'call to action' – now we've highlighted the problem or issue. Butt Free Australia currently consistently uses "PLEASE BUTT IT, THEN BIN IT ®".

Please do NOT use 'Butt Free' in messaging unless you have consulted with Butt Free Australia.

Getting messages into the media

The media provides valuable opportunities to broadly illustrate, discuss, and debate the impacts of butt littering to raise awareness with both smokers and non-smokers.

While it's fantastic to get mainstream media to run litter stories, it's not a 'sexy' story in the media mind and is difficult to do. It's important for this reason to develop creative and new ideas to capture the media's attention.

Butt Free Australia has developed guidelines for gaining media attention for butt littering stories, which can be downloaded from the Tools list below.

A disadvantage in using media is the lack of influence on the tone of stories run, keeping in mind the objective of raising awareness and the need to engage butt litterers with a positive tone. Media tend to highlight the Enforcement aspect of the campaign (fines) and often run stories with a judgemental or berating tone.

Advertising provides an advantage over media to communicate messages in a tone necessary to engage butt litterers with a view to fostering behavioural change.

Project advertising

Project advertising provides direct access to target audiences and the flexibility to deliver a message in a simple, positive and relevant way.

While it can require significant financial resources, because of its advantages over the media it is highly recommended to strive for.

Project partnerships provide great opportunities to extend advertising reach through either in-kind, contra or cash contributions.

Paid advertising

The best advertising medium to use will depend on the Context and how to best capture your target audience. There are many options available, even for the tightest budget. Live radio reads, newspaper and Vespa/scooter advertising are three examples of comparatively inexpensive forms of advertising that, if targeted directly to your audience, are a worthwhile investment.

Attractive options for a more flexible budget include outdoor advertising, such as posters and billboards, or studio-produced radio advertisements.

Free advertising

'Free' advertising may be negotiated through potential partnerships that may already have agreements with media outlets or their own advertising 'space', such as poster space on their own property.

Action – Awareness

Identify an audience within the chosen Context by referring to the activity and behaviour observed in your informal observation (Assessment).
Identify a value that your audience may have with identified hotspots.
Download ButtFREE Guidelines – Message Development, and start to develop and approve messages for the project.
Download ButtFREE Guidelines – Media, and determine the most effective way to use the media to raise awareness of butt littering.
Estimate funds available within your organisation for advertising and enter in the budget of your Butt Free Project plan.