what are the most effective anti-littering campaigns ever conducted globally?

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 08 Dec 2005 10:51 PST

It's difficult to gauge which campaign is the "most effective" since
there is no standard to make a comparision.

Without question however, in my mind at least, the powerful
anti-littering campaign that aired repeatedly on American television
in the 1970's and has been revived spradically in the years thereafter
featuring the crying Indian (portrayed by Native American actor, Iron
Eyes Cody) is by far the most memorable and effective public service
anti-littering campaign ever launched. The "crying Indian" has been an
icon of responsbile environmentalism for decades now and in terms of
the greatest impact, I think one would be hard-pressed to find a more
effective effort.

Would you like to know more about this as answer?

tutuzdad-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 08 Dec 2005 10:55 PST

I should have said "...the Native American was portrayed by an actor
who was widely known by the name, "Iron Eyes Cody").

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Request for Question Clarification by byrd-ga on 08 Dec 2005 11:02 PST

The "Don't Mess With Texas" anti-littering campaign is another example
of a phenomenally successful effort and is, in fact, still ongoing,
and still effective. See here: http://www.dontmesswithtexas.org/ 
However, this is, of course, a regionalized effort, while the one
mentioned by Tutuzdad was on more national scale.

So, I wonder if you could clarify your question on a few points: 

1) Are you interested primarily in national efforts, or are you also
interested in local and/or regional campaigns? If the latter, please
indicate how narrow a scope would be acceptable.

2) Do you need a variety of examples from around the world, or would
you be satisfied to see only examples from the U.S.? If global, do you
need examples from every continent, or would only two suffice? How
much variety are you looking for?

2) How many examples do you hope to see? 2? 5? 10? More? If more, how many?

2) What are your criteria for effectiveness? Do you require
statistics? If so, what kind of statistics, and how recent?

Many thanks for your clarification. 

Best wishes,
Byrd-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 08 Dec 2005 11:06 PST

I should also mention that others share my sentiment about the "crying
Indian" campaign as it received a number of awards and was even chosen
one of the top 100 advertising campaigns of the 20th Century by a
reputable publication. That ought to speak for itself.

tutuzdad-ga

Dear elixirgroup-ga;

As I mentioned it would be difficult, if not impossible, to identify
which campaign was the most effective since there is no standard by
which to make a comparision. What is certain however is that the
longest lasting campaign must be asumed to be the most successful and
thereby the most efective. Having said that, I am posting this as an
answer because I cannot, for the life of me, see how anyone identify
find a more effective global anti-littering campaign than that of the
universally recognized "Keep America Beautiful" Campaign. Let me
explain:

The ?Crying Indian? public service announcements were not the first,
but they were certainly one of the most effective ? if not the THE
most effective - campaigns ever launched. In 1961, Keep America
Beautiful joined with the Ad Council to come up with a campaign that
dramatized how litter and other forms of pollution were hurting the
environment. The purposes was to instill in the general public a
responsibility to do their part to help protect the environment and to
draw attention to the reckless behaviors that lead to pollution.

The first of these anti-litter campaigns involved a character known as
"Suzy Spotless" whose scolding of her litterbug father and other
featured characters which did generate some interest but the effort
was not taken as seriously as the campaign had hoped and did not get
the desired results. In 1970 the "Suzy Spotless? character was dropped
and in 1971 the campaign tried again; this time with a campaign
entitled ?People Start Pollution, People Can Stop It,? that included a
heart-wrenching scene in which an Indian viewing his previously
pristine and now dangerously polluted domain turned to face the camera
and, without saying a single word, rolled an enormous tear from his
eye and down his face. This brief, compelling act of outrage succeeded
in shaming hundreds of millions of people who mindlessly littered the
environment and lit the fuse to what would eventually become an
explosive interest in the environmentalist movement in America.

?On Earth Day, 1971, a PSA featuring Native American actor Chief Iron
Eyes Cody and the tagline line, "People Start Pollution. People can
stop it." aired for the first time. Iron Eyes Cody became synonymous
with environmental concern and achieved lasting fame as, "The Crying
Indian." The PSA won two Clio awards and the campaign was named one of
the top 100 advertising campaigns of the 20th Century by Ad Age
Magazine. In 1982, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce honored Iron Eyes
Cody, whose film repertoire included three Western films with
President Ronald Reagan, with a star bearing his name on the Famous
Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.?
THE AD COUNCIL
http://www.adcouncil.org/campaigns/historic_campaigns_pollution/


The movement was not limited exclusively to America either as other
countries soon adopted the crying Indian commercial series of
announcements:

During the height of the campaign, Keep America Beautiful reported
receiving more than 2,000 letters a month from people wanting to join
their local team. By the end of the campaign, Keep America Beautiful
local teams had helped to reduce litter by as much as 88% in 300
communities, 38 states, and several countries. The success of the Keep
America Beautiful anti-litter campaign led to hundreds of other
environmental messages through the years, from many different sources,
including the Ad Council.?
THE AD COUNCIL
http://www.adcouncil.org/campaigns/historic_campaigns_pollution/

Keep America Beautiful?s "People Start Pollution - People can stop it"
campaign ran successfully for more than 22 years. It was revived on
April 21/Earth Day 1998 when Keep America Beautiful launched a similar
series of Public Service Announcements entitled, ?Back By Popular
Neglect,? that recalls the famous face and tear of Iron Eyes Cody and
runs on some channels to this very day. In short the Keep America
Beautiful campaign is so successful that it has now run for almost 45
years and the Crying Indian campaign alone as run more than 35 years
and spans numerous generations of now ecologically minded people who
credit this single image with sparking their interest in keeping our
environment clean. This PSA became the most widely seen PSA in the
history of television and it has been estimated that the air time for
this PSA, if paid for, would have cost well over half a billion
dollars.

The actor who portrayed the crying Indian and who billed himself as
?Iron Eyes Cody?, was disputably an authentic Native American himself
(The Internet Movie Data Base on Cody's films identifies him as Espera
DeCorti, an American of Italiian descent) but his message was so
memorable and globally effective that everywhere he traveled around
the world people recognized him most, not for his already well-known
portrayals of characters in American motion pictures, but because of
his portrayal of the crying Indian. Cody was known to have been hosted
by a number of Presidents and even Pope John Paul II who was said to
have been moved by Cody?s message. One account mentioned that even the
cloistered and undeniably isolated Emperor Hirohito, upon meeting
Cody, recognized him immediately and simply said, ?You...Cry-Man?.

I hope you find that my answer exceeds your expectations. If you have
any questions about my research please post a clarification request
prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating and your
final comments and I look forward to working with you again in the
near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher



INFORMATION SOURCES

TV ACRES
http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_chiefironeyes.htm

AD COUNCIL 
Campaigns That Have Made A Difference
http://www.aef.com/exhibits/social_responsibility/ad_council/2148

KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL, INC
http://www.kab.org/media.asp?id=246&rid=250

THE GREENS' BLACK-OUT ON THEIR IMITATION RED MAN
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north67.html

INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0002014/



THE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Commercial: The Crying Indian (1974)
http://boss.streamos.com/real/adcouncil/historical/pollution_tv_indian_in_canoe_30_rp.smi?siteid=aef

Other sources in various formats:

Keep America Beautiful
http://www.kab.org/uploadedFiles/KAB/crying-indian-512k.wmv

Alta Vista
http://www.altavista.com/video/results?q=Keep+America+Beautiful+&mvf=mpeg&mvf=avi&mvf=qt&mvf=msmedia&mvf=realmedia&mvf=other&mvd=all

Yahoo!
http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=keep+american+beautiful&ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&fl=0&cv=g&x=wrt

Alltheweb
http://multimedia.alltheweb.com/search?cat=vid&cs=utf8&q=keep+america+beautiful&rys=0&itag=crv



Commercial: Suzy Spotless (1969)
http://boss.streamos.com/real/adcouncil/historical/pollution_tv_susan_spotless_60_rp.smi?siteid=aef


SEARCH STRATEGY


SEARCH ENGINE USED:

Google ://www.google.com


SEARCH TERMS USED:

AD COUNCIL

CRYING INDIAN

KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL

IRON EYES CODY

SUZY SPOTLESS

"PEOPLE START POLLUTION. PEOPLE CAN STOP IT."

CAMPAIGN

AWARDS

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT