Alia Multiutility’s ‘guerrilla marketing’ campaign to combat waste abandonment
‘Withdrawal in progress. Left by an uncivilized man!’. With this notice, printed on an eye-catching yellow and black sticker, attacked on abandoned waste that ruins the image of the city, it left today in Florence a ‘guerrilla marketing’ action, i.e. an unconventional communication strategy, against the uncivilized acts carried out by those who leave waste on the street, disinterested in the cleanliness and decorum of the territory.
The initiative, included in the launch plan of Aliapp’s new services, is by Alia Multiutility which, alongside actions that promote new cleaning services and citizen involvement, also intends to implement original communication strategies, which start from the bottom and which aim to make the user responsible for collaborating and reporting incorrect behavior, in this case when faced with abandoned waste, with the affixing of yellow and black adhesive bands and a writing that warns passers-by that that waste will soon be removed. The objective is, above all, to inform citizens of the fact that a collection service has been activated and at the same time help a change of perspective on the user, turn attention and highlight the uncivilized gestures that cost the community approximately 20 million euros per year.
The first appointment with the ‘guerrilla marketing’ actions took place today, thanks to an activity that involved the environmental inspectors of Alia and the boys of the A-Team, a group of facilitators operating in Florence as part of the transformation of waste collection ‘Florence circular city’. The actions were concentrated in the area of the historic city centre, where the abandoned waste was wrapped with adhesive tape, bearing the words ‘Collection in progress. Left by an uncivilized person!’. The initiative will continue in the next few days so as to strengthen Alia Multiutility’s strategy to attack the phenomenon of abandoned waste, also confirmed by the launch, which took place a month ago, of the service which guarantees the collection of abandoned waste, reported by citizens via Aliapp, within three hours of reporting within the perimeter of the historic center and within six hours outside the downtown area. It is an on-call service, active 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, designed to guarantee more efficiency, cleaner and a more direct relationship with users.
In particular, to date, 482 requests for intervention have been received by Alia’s ‘Control Room’ through Aliapp, the application which allows citizens to access a wide range of services from smartphones, starting with the possibility of reporting abandoned waste, indicating the place of abandonment, attaching a photo of the waste and receiving updates from Alia on the subsequent removal. Of the 482 requests received so far, 411 led to the rapid removal of abandoned waste, on average within 2.7 hours of reporting it, while 71 requests were managed outside the rapid collection route because they were non-returnable abandonments in the category of ‘urban waste’ for which the service was designed and organised, therefore special or dangerous waste.
“Today’s initiative will be replicated over time in Florence, and in other territories served by Alia, with the aim of also involving the many virtuous citizens who live respecting the environment every day and whose daily commitment according to the rules is questioned by the incivility of a few rude people”, concludes Alia.
