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European Recycling Platform

A magical Christmas tale for Barretstown Camp

Opportunity

The European Recycling Platform Ireland (ERP) is Ireland’s only pan-European compliance scheme to implement the European Union’s regulations on the recycling of electrical and electronic waste. Christmas is an important time for ERP Ireland as 30% of all batteries are purchased in the run up to Christmas, equating to 33 million batteries. A large amount of these batteries end up in landfill because they’ve been thrown out in domestic waste, this is harmful to the environment and as a result the valuable materials inside the batteries are lost forever.

ERP Ireland wanted to create an online festive communications campaign to remind consumers of the importance of disposing of batteries in a sustainable way at Christmas time. ERP also wanted to incorporate their partnership with children’s charity Barretstown. Batteries for Barretstown is a three-year partnership with the charity which aims to increase battery recycling while raising much needed funds for Barretstown.

Solution

Through research, the TRA team learned of Ashleigh Kiernan, a former Barretstown camper. In a television interview, Ashleigh stated that when she was sick before her time at Barretstown, she "went down like a dead battery”, but when she came back from her time at the camp she was “fully charged”.

This became the creative inspiration for the campaign. The TRA team wanted to tell Ashleigh’s Barretstown story in a compelling way while also incorporating the important message of battery recycling at Christmas time. The TRA team reached out to children’s book author Benji Bennett, who was also a Barretstown ambassador to create the story and to narrate the video, which was a mix of live action and illustration.

The video centred on the story of Ashleigh, a sick little girl whose energy was as low as a dead battery, but through the power of positivity she came back from Barretstown with her batteries fully recharged.

Outcome

The video was promoted on social media in the weeks leading up to Christmas, reaching over 330,000 people across Facebook, Twitter & YouTube with campaign engagement increasing by 33% on the previous year.

Campaign awareness increased by a further 48% with social media coverage coming from Barretstown, Adams Cloud, Christmas FM, Womens Way, MyKidsTime.com and social influencers such as Cliona O’Connor, Aoibhe Devlin and Darragh Doyle.

And finally ERP exceeded their battery collection target by a whopping 142% that year.

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