When was the last time you had used a roadside dustbin to get rid of any garbage? Let me reframe my question: when was the last time you had come across a well-maintained dustbin on the streets of Kolkata?
Ignore that; it’s rhetorical!
Although the situation has improved over the last few years, let’s face facts: we still experience a dearth of proper dustbins in our ‘Clean City’ of Kolkata. Enter ‘Adbin’ from the house of Green Clean Media Works (GCMW), the brainchild of two budding entrepreneurs, Ankit Agarwal and Joy Pansari.
Let me be blunt in mentioning that their concept is rather simple: picture a slightly superior dustbin and add an advertisement board as a support behind it! Imagine such dustbins (offering free Wi-Fi connectivity) throughout the city; it offers so much of untapped ad space for contemporary marketers fatigued by conventional outdoor advertising. Plus you get to keep the city clean. Perfect example of the Societal Marketing Concept, right? Perfect example of a Cause-Related Marketing Initiative, right? Adbin comes across as the perfect answer to our sorry state of waste disposal in the city of Kolkata. However, the summit is probably a zillion miles ahead!
I had the pleasure of meeting the two promising faces of GCMW to learn more about their initiative in detail. The details of the interview and their concept may be perused in the slideshow below.
As a marketing enthusiast, I did observe certain aspects which this divergent startup should be looking into (or has already explored). The concept, although inspired, requires plenty of awareness campaigns and marketing shindigs to promote the initiative further. As the founders would agree, promoting their concept in colleges and institutions could be a great starting point. Although they are presently operating in major residential complexes across the city of Kolkata, the founders would definitely be eyeing a pan-India presence in the near future. For such a reality to transpire, the key would be to incentivize people to start using the bins. This is where their conceived Wi-Fi Bin could play a key role. People are crazy for free internet and with a smartphone app, people could soon be taking this seriously. Again this would require intensive coverage of Adbins throughout the city, for ensuring consumer participation. Installing separate spitoons could address the menacing spitting issue. Given that the concept is still in a product development and conception phase of the traditional PLC, I find the solution very similar to Professor Ehrenberg’s ATR Framework, where you start off with intensive advertising to build massive and widespread awareness, which in turn would induce trial, where people would start accepting the concept and attempt to change their behaviour due to various incentives given out. The final stage would be to strengthen and solidify this behaviour through enhanced coverage.
There could be so many other strategies that could be worked upon, experimented and perfected, because the concept might actually be the much-awaited answer to the pitiful state of waste disposal mechanisms in our country.
Cheers to Adbin and its founders for their brilliant initiative!
introspectmarketing 