You are Nadia Beaulieu, head of sustainability marketing at Maple & Meadow Foods in Vancouver. You have CA$4.0 million and thirty days to put a third behaviour-change campaign in front of the board, after two that moved almost nothing. The first thing the board will ask is what stands between households and the right bin.
The situation
Maple & Meadow sells refrigerated plant-forward meals, dairy and pantry staples through Canada's national grocery chains: CA$480 million of revenue, roughly 6 million households a year. The company has committed publicly to a 2030 emissions target, but about 70% of its footprint sits outside its plants and trucks: in what households buy, what they throw away and which bin the package ends up in.
The flagship pack has been recyclable for four years and is recycled 28% of the time. Two earlier campaigns spent CA$6.5 million between them, reached most of the country, raised stated concern in the tracking study and moved measured behaviour by less than one per cent. A retailer sustainability scorecard ranks the company 11th of 14 brands on helping consumers reduce waste, and that chain has warned it may hand shelf space to higher-scoring competitors at the autumn category review.
Your team does not agree on the cause. Households tell the study that recycling matters, and still do not do it 72% of the time. Recall of the brand's sustainability messages sits below the category average. And the pack is sorted correctly only by those who read the side panel. Rosalind Ferreira, the board member who voted down both earlier campaigns, has said she will not fund a third that counts people who saw something. Grant Whelan, the chief marketing officer, will take your plan to the board.