Up & away

Abstract

This paper presents Up & Away, an environmental campaign about upcycling by four final-year undergraduates from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. Upcycling refers to the conversion of unwanted objects into usable ones of higher value and quality, without degrading the quality and composition of the waste material.

While governmental institutions are heading more policies and campaigns towards environmental and sustainability development, existing measures have shown to be ineffective. It is thus important for us to tackle this problem from a different angle. As upcycling is a new concept, this campaign will help inform the public about the severity of the waste issue and how they can use upcycling to tackle it. Up & Away aims to encourage families (parents and their children of ages 7 to 9) to upcycle together when recycling in Singapore is not an ideal option. We aim to achieve this by introducing upcycling to families as a doable skill they can do together to reduce waste.

To develop our campaign strategy and gain a better understanding of our target audience, both secondary and primary research were conducted. Based on these, we found out that family members play an important role in one’s decision to upcycle. Thus, Up & Away created a two-pronged approach, targeting parents as our primary target audience and children as our secondary target audience. Some campaign tactics were how-to videos posted on Facebook, recess booths at Primary schools and free public upcycling workshops.

To evaluate our campaign, impact and output objectives will be analysed through a post-campaign survey (control group only design), media coverage as well as various indicators of our campaign reach and impact.