Danone-AQUA, the largest bottled water company in Indonesia, was facing a challenge. They had been named the top plastic polluter in Indonesia by an NGO despite their long-going sustainability effort since the 1980s.

Hence, the brand wanted to communicate their thought leadership in sustainability in order to change their image.

The company launched the Bijak Berplastik campaign, which means "Be Smart with Plastic" in Indonesian.

The campaign focused on collecting waste, educating consumers about the importance of recycling and reducing plastic waste, and developing an innovative solution to tackle plastic waste issue.

In accordance, Danone-AQUA also launched a new product, AQUA Life, which is made from recycled PET plastic.

Bijak Berplastik is the result of the company's years of unspoken effort towards sustainability.

The marketing team aimed to promote a solution while encouraging consumers to adopt conscious consumption habits amidst the height of criticism of plastic waste issue.

Lack of awareness. Environmental issue cannot be solved alone, it’s a collective responsibility. Most people are trying to blame each other instead of collaborating.

Building perception of AQUA as the pioneer in driving change for innovation in plastic waste management in Indonesia. During the launch of the campaign, the brand was known to public as a top plastic polluter in the country, despite their commitment in innovation to tackle plastic waste since the 1980s.

Changing consumer behavior. It can be difficult to change people's habits, especially when it comes to something as ingrained as using plastic. Plastic also still seen as cheap and easy alternative, hence people are hesitate to pay for a more sustainable options.

Earning Trust from stakeholders. The brand is not a top of mind when it comes to sustainability effort, therefore, it often seen as not being genuine from its stakeholders.

We look into what’s the roadblock for plastic

The key issue in manufacturing and innovation is that not all plastic packaging is designed to be recycled. How can we fix this problem? We can consider redesigning our materials or streamlining the standards.

There is currently no waste management infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region that can recycle all the plastic being used. Limited financing is available to build such facilities due to pricing and economic feasibility concerns. The question then becomes: How can we create a more holistic and effective cross-sector waste management ecosystem?

Consumers are not recycling because they lack understanding of the problem and solution. To address this, more community outreach campaigns are needed, and the next generation must be educated on waste management and prevention.

Regulation and implementation can be complex. Many national governments do not provide enough support to the waste management and recycling industry, while local governments may not enforce legislation. Additionally, the industry has yet to develop an industry-wide waste collection policy due to potential bias caused by proximity.

There is a dire lack of reliable research and data analysis. Good data could help inform, educate, and influence decisions on policy and regulations.

After understanding the issue, we see that collaboration is the solution we can foresee in the next few years. We summarize the objective as follows:

To increase awareness of collective environmental responsibility.

To position AQUA as a pioneer in driving change and innovation in plastic waste management in Indonesia.

To build brand affinity by working towards a common goal of being part of the solution for plastic waste issues.

Hence we come up with strategy

💡POSITIVE ACTIVISM Action is possible Solution are available A better future can be built, when we unleash the power of the people

All of us are part of the plastic waste problem, now it’s time to stop shifting blame and rally together. So we can become part of the solution for the goodness of the earth.

We use the Building Belief framework by Arthur W. Page. We started by creating shared values between what people need, what business own, and the opportunity it lies.

As an entry point, we optimize Key Opinion Leaders and community who have shared values with AQUA and create a program that leads us to our goal.

We introduce Hamish Daud and Kelly Tandiono as our Brand Partner

Before launching, we invite Hamish and Kelly to visit our facilities.

From the recycling business unit to the ocean cleanup facility, we allow our brand partners to witness our actual efforts to tackle the plastic waste issue.

Our campaign begins with community mapping to understand which stakeholders are worth the effort to communicate with. Mapping is divided into three categories: influence, interest, and sentiment. These are measured against campaign activity.

Later, the mapping will be used to kickstart community and KOL engagement throughout the campaign. Prior to the launch of AQUA's sustainability innovation product (AQUA Life), we invited the community to discuss the issue of plastic waste and circular economy at our Community Gathering, in partnership with National Geographic’s Saya Pilih Bumi.

In the spirit of collaboration, we have engaged seven artists and members of the community to kick off our AQUA Life product. These collaborators have created artwork using recycled bottles from six recycling business units in Java, giving them a second life. This mirrors the AQUA Life product, which is made from recycled plastic.

Our Brand Partner alongside with Danone-AQUA (former) President, Corrine Tap adding bottles to artwork by Alfiah Rahdini

Precious Plastic Indonesia community showing Hamish Daud how to create kitchenware from recycled plastic

We evaluate the campaign using AMEC’s IEF:

AQUA's #BijakBerplastik is still leading sustainability articles in prominent media with a 91% share.

Sustainability coverage increased by 63% compared to 2018. This was driven by the consistent activities held by Danone-AQUA throughout the year.

Input7 activities 12 earned KOLsOutputs224 coverage 7.2 PR IndexOuttakes72,982,007 media impressions 276,887 earned KOLs impressionsComponents20192020Key messages penetration87%97%PR Index7.27.6

The result of AQUA’s sustainability efforts in 2020 grew compared to the previous year despite having no major activities like #BijakBerplastik exhibition.

This suggest that AQUA’s efforts have been receiving more acknowledgement.

Input6 online activitiesOutputs237 coverage 7.6 PR IndexOuttakes128,000,000 socmed potential reach 421 engagement are made 70% favorable conversation

At the end of our campaign, we mapped our brand partners using the matrix we proposed. Choosing Hamish Daud and Kelly Tandiono was the right decision, as both have a high level of influence.

In 2020, we remapped activities for Hamish and Kelly to match their relevance and brand interaction.

The AQUA LIFE #BijakBerplastik campaign trend reached 746.4K people and had 3.2K mentions in 6 months (January - July 2019).

After the campaign was launched by #BijakBerplastik and AQUA LIFE in August, the trend reached 1.7M people with 1.2K mentions in just 2 months (August - September 2019).

✅The project helped me learn how to approach systematic issues through collaboration, understanding which stakeholders are worth engaging, and being selective about what to communicate to consumers.

Maverick Indonesia: Desiree Tilaar, Ambar Dwilo, Lidya Sophiani, Charlie TJ, Maharani Chandradewi, Dionisia Reni

YDigital (Digital)

Interface (Activation)