Honest Tea sets up 30 ft Tall Recycling Bin in NYC by Diana Gaviria

Coca Cola’s Honest Tea will be launching a nation-wide initiative on April 30^th called The Great Recycle. The campaign aims to spread awareness about recycling habits in the U.S., and will be launched from New York City in support of the city’s newest pledge to double recycling efforts by 2017.

Honest Tea will place a 30 foot recyclable recycling bin in the center of Times Square, and on April 30^th the company hopes they will be able to recycle 45,000 beverage containers in 10 hours.  Honest Tea employees, including CEO Seth Goldman, will be present on the day of the launch to operate a conveyor belt that will deposit the beverage containers in the bin. New Yorkers will also receive prizes depending on how many bottles they recycle. Participants earn points for the number of bottles they recycle, and can redeem these points for Broadway tickets, restaurant vouchers, clothes, bikes and more. Finally, all the beverage containers collected during the day will be turned into gardening supplies by local non-profit GrowNYC, and will be given to the city’s public schools.

Co-founder and CEO Seth Goldman said, “Recycling rates are still low, so we were looking for something aggressive but still fun and engaging to deliver the message. We wanted to do something in a big, visible way. Our focus is to make a high impact this month, which is called ‘Earth Month.’ We want people to be aware and make a commitment.”

The innovative Facebook and Twitter campaigns that will run leading up to the event also allow people to participate even if they are not in New York. The Recycler app finds previous posts with a large number of comments and likes, and ‘recycles’ them along with the person’s recycling pledge. These posts also win participants points that can be redeemed at Recyclebank.com.

Although the campaign has yet to launch, it seems that it has all the makings of a great advertisement campaign. Honest Tea has created a campaign that not only has significant buzz-factor, but also has a great message that everyone needs to hear. In addition to the important message, the company has found a way to engage people and get them excited about something that most people consider an important, but slightly tedious chore. Overall, it seems that Honest Tea has managed to design a campaign that does what all campaigns should strive to do – inspire goodwill and brand loyalty by raising awareness about important issues and supporting the communities that purchase the product.