The rubbish of marketing

Abstract

One of the “by-products” of successful marketing, in the single-use packaged fmcg sector is litter. For example, in a recent Australian survey, empty coke cans were found in 91 per cent of the 983 towns and cities researched. In this paper, we begin to use marketing literature and practice to tackle what we see as a marketing problem – persuading consumers to change their behaviour and not drop litter. Firstly, we demonstrate that existing ways of capturing data about consumers' littering behaviour and attitudes towards litter are flawed. Secondly, we propose and test a new, more realistic, “proxy” for littering behaviour and attitudes towards litter, “litter recall”. Finally, we investigate whether there are differences in values between those that are more likely to drop litter and those that are not. These findings are of use to researchers and practitioners interested in using marketing practice to develop, for example, more effective anti-littering campaigns.