Bin it.

Last year I attended an inter-agency conference on CSR and sustainability. Andy Hobsbawm, one of the founders of Do the Green Thing and European Chairman of Agency.com, gave a presentation on the origins and thinking behind Do the Green Thing. He postulated that great creativity is needed to motivate people to behave differently, "to tempt us to act differently with delightful creative scraps", and that creativity can inspire people to be greener. I remember being intrigued by his approach to influencing behavior and his application of lessons from adland to a greater cause (I also remember enjoying his simple, elegant, clean and highly visual presentation).

See Andy speaking at Ted here.

This memory was stirred recently when I came across Volkswagen's The Fun Theory site, and its experimental use of creativity to influence behavior (incidentally, one of The Fun Theory videos (number 3 below) racked up more than 1.3 million views last week).







It seems that the fun strategy is also being considered as motivating force for the hybrid market. At a three-day conference on the future of plug-in hybrids, one lingering question kept coming up: Who's going to buy these things? The answer, according to outsiders and industry leaders here: no one, if they're not fun to drive. Fun to play with. And fun to look at. More here.

Let the change begin.