2022 Edition

How we get the idea: Despite huge mask consumption, we found that public awareness of mask recycling is still very low and most used masks are not recycled. These discarded masks remain in the environment as micro plastics, causing serious pollution, especially in the ocean. From this insight, we decided to design a campaign at the beach to raise public awareness of the importance of mask recycling and push a good recycling habit. The project: The Idea Our project is “Tik’it Up, Protect what you love” consists in a social media campaign on surgical mask recycling. The project was developed during our workshop in Domus Academy, MA Visual Brand Design in collaboration with DDB Agency and Zurich Connect. Zurich Connect, an insurance company that values protecting what you love, and is notorious for its successful acts of social responsibility, wants to tackle this issue. Looking to designers for collaboration, they posed the question: how can we remedy the ecological problems emerging from used face masks and promote sustainability among people in Italy? The project aims is to create awareness and push people to take real actions. The social channels inform and narrate about the travel of a tiki bar truck around Italian beach during the summer vacation season. This beach truck travels five of the most  polluted beaches of Italy setting out to protect the environment, recycle masks, and give people the summer fun they crave. How does it work? It easy! First, the creators will talk about the campaign in advance, with a reminder a couple of days before. People see a post of Tik’it up campaign on Instagram from an influencer saying you can buy the food and beach kit with your used masks. People prepare themselves to join the campaign collecting used masks during the whole week. We decided to go for a very important category of creators: amongst a couple of big names, there are mostly the micro-creators, which means people with smaller communities. Small community doesn’t mean a weak engagement, it is in fact quite the opposite. If the creators are well thought, it should be already a success because they will be there as well, and people are going to follow them. Once people arrive on the beach, they can find the beach truck following the environmental signs and fun music. At the food truck, people can buy food and drinks with their used masks and little amount of cash. Following Zurich Connect values, people can buy a beach kit which includes the protective items such as condom, sunscreen, and energy drinks. People who did not prepare enough masks can request gloves from the truck and pick up the discarded masks on the spot. After buying some food and beach kit, they stay around enjoying and learning how to recycle used masks by the signs around. Finally, they post the experience on social media inviting more people to join. During the day of the event, the same creators will post Instagram stories and interact with the public. This will happen next to a more traditional kind of digital campaign: the creation of the event social media profiles, the publication of digital contents through those same channels and through Zurich existing channels, and why not, printed paper as well: newspapers, magazines and posters around Italy. Once the event is over, there will be the re-posting of the digital contents people will spontaneously do and the ones in front of the Instagram corners or with the creators. The so called USG, User Generated Content.  Second phase: 2 Individual Projects. In a second phase two students of the team have worked on individual projects improving the social media aspect. a) Individual Project: Tik’it Up How to get away with a successful digital marketing Campaign by Chiara Pieri.  As second phase of the project Chiara Pieri has developed the social media campaign and the digital strategy, a fundamental element for the success of all the project. She have done an interesting case studies research underlining what’s relevant in their strategies. She took out the three most common and reproducible characteristics that were used as lighthouse in the dark for Tik’it Up: challenge (collect a large amount of surgical masks even directly on the seaside), experience (live the event and share comment and pictures; to push it further, a photo corner will also be implemented in the design of the bar and the pictures of the users will be used as after event posts), scarcity model (it’s interesting to think about how efficient is to tell people something won’t really last. This will make it even more appealing: this is why, we should push a bit more the message of a temporary tiki truck and special kit underlining the three days idea). b) NOW OR NEVER: exploring short-term branding as a tool for awareness in today’s Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) culture by Nora Mosley. The second thesis developed on this project is Nora Mosley’s Project. This thesis explores how short-term branded content and campaigns can leverage Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), related to Millenial and GenZ generations, as a powerful tool for awareness in today’s fast pace. Elements of hype can be used as a means of creating awareness, sharing information, bringing people together, and inspiring effective action But, to use FOMO as a vehicle for social change, we must consider how awareness strategies and visual solutions play into the success of an initiative. This thesis establishes a set of guidelines intended for those who wish to leverage FOMO in a branded social awareness campaign. The approach consists of four phases. Phase 1: Determine your Cause. What are you fighting for and why? What are your goals? This is the foundation for your initiative. Phase 2: Research, Cultural Exploration, and Planning. Understanding the landscape in which you intend to inspire change. Phase 3: the FOMO Strategy. Discovering, defining, and developing the value you are bringing and how that can be expressed creatively. Phase 4: the FOMO Experience. Developing the conceptual, visual, experiential, and sensory assets used to identify your brand, and define its actions, behaviors, and beliefs that ensure the purpose across all touchpoints. This proposed framework can help brands and corporations communicate and stand out in the noisiest of industries. It’s now or never.  Value and Potential: What we bring to the table! The core value of ‘Tik’it Up’ campaign is to make people perceive recycling masks as a positive experience, create awareness and push people to take real actions. The memories of participating in the mask recycling campaign and receiving delicious food and gifts as rewards and the environmental messages that people learned naturally while dancing and having fun will serve as a positive motivation for people to continue their recycling habit when they return to their daily lives. This solution is feasible and has potential to expand. The location and duration of the campaign can be flexibly adjusted according to the status of disease outbreaks, and a message can be tailored to the situation and be delivered to the public.