How ECOPACK Activated over 500 Venues in a Campaign

How did one initiative manage to unite hundreds of venues, fitness centers, and schools in the mission for a cleaner environment? With the “ECOstars” campaign, ECOPACK Bulgaria not only provided free recycling containers but also created an eco-rating platform where over 20,000 users voted for their favorite venues. In this case study, you’ll discover how strategic digital marketing led to the participation of over 500 venues in the campaign, what communication approaches we used, and how we achieved significant audience engagement. Finally, you’ll learn the key lessons from this green initiative and how they can be applied to your business.

WHO IS ECOPACK? – ABOUT THE CLIENT

ECOPACK Bulgaria AD is the leading packaging waste recovery organization in Bulgaria. For 20 years, ECOPACK Bulgaria has been driving the circular economy of packaging waste in the country. The organization maintains a three-color container system for separate packaging waste collection, serving over 2.5 million people and 94 municipalities nationwide.

WHAT WAS THE CAMPAIGN CONCEPT?

The task was to motivate venues, fitness centers, and schools in Sofia, Plovdiv, and Burgas to participate in a campaign for recycling plastic bottles and aluminum cans.

By submitting a participation request on the campaign’s landing page, each venue receives free recycling containers and complimentary collection service for gathered plastic bottles and cans.

In collaboration with creative studio “Slava” (authors of the idea, communication framework, and key visuals), the “ECOstars” campaign was born.

To achieve the key objectives, we worked on the following points:

• Landing page highlighting the benefits of campaign participation.
• Effective and functional application form.
• Ability for users to vote for their favorite venue/location.
• Stickers, awards, and “ECOstars” title for the 500 venues that collected the most votes.

WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES?

The first challenge of the campaign was to select the most effective media mix within our limited budget.

The second challenge of the campaign was to create an appropriate communication platform to stimulate maximum venue participation.

The third challenge of the campaign was to make the campaign recognizable among the audience, considering the brand’s many other activities – such as ‘Urban Recycliade’ and ‘Ecochampions’.

WHAT WAS OUR APPROACH?

The main goal in our messaging was to give ECOstars a human face – this way users could identify with real people behind the initiative and campaign goals.

We presented owners, servers, teachers, and event organizers as real stars who care for the planet while working.

Our content had main focus topics, including:

• Venue participation in the Green Walk of Fame – the first eco-rating platform for venues in Bulgaria. Each venue earns an honorary ECOstar badge to display on their door.
• Special recognition for outstanding participants from the campaign, tagging venues, sharing articles written about the most distinguished ones.
• Free containers and collection for a simplified process
• Raffle with 100 eco prizes for people who vote for their favorite venue.
• Inspiring stories about the people who are part of ECOstars

From a communication perspective, we emphasized the image that the campaign brings to venues. We knew that everyone wants their business to be successful – and environmental consciousness is an integral part of a modern project’s success.

And here we’ve selected a small sample of our favorite campaign posts on social media:

META FORMATS, AUDIENCES, AND MESSAGES

The formats we used for META were:

We chose to start with Facebook and Instagram posts, as well as banners along the two main directions for ‘ECOstars’.

• Campaign participation
• Voting for venues participating in the campaign

Static banners for META, optimized for traffic.

And the target audiences were:

We selected two main and quite specific audiences:

• venue managers;
• fitness facility managers.

We focused on major cities – Sofia, Burgas, and Plovdiv. We also selected various interests allowing us to reach users with maximum precision.

META FORMATS, AUDIENCES, AND MESSAGES

The formats we used for Google were:

• Google Responsive display banners

This is an automated type of advertising that allows the use of images, logos, headlines, and descriptions. The advantage is that Google automatically optimizes the ads, showing the most effective combination of provided resources to achieve the best results. We also included animated (HTML5) banners.

• Google Display

We chose to enhance communication by including banner advertising in the Google network. It gives us the opportunity to reach suitable audiences with visually engaging ads while users browse millions of websites, applications, and Google products. This is an excellent way to generate website traffic and attract potential partners, expanding campaign reach beyond social networks.

And the target audiences were:

• Affinity audience – Targeting users based on their interests and behavior – e.g., Business professionals, Aspiring Chefs, etc.
• In-market audience – Targeting users whose behavior indicates they are actively looking to purchase products or services. E.g., Business Technology, Business Services, etc.
• Life events – important life events for our target users. E.g., Starting a Business soon, Recently started a business, etc.
• Placements – Targeting ad positions on sites where we would like our ads to be positioned. E.g., money.bg, investor.bg, capital.bg, etc.

The formats and messages we used for the campaign looked like this:

THE RESULTS

The results we achieved from the advertising formats used in the overall digital mix for the campaign:

• Over 1 million unique users reached
• Over 4 million ad impressions
• Over 44,000 ad clicks in META
• Over 127,000 engagements in META
• Over 85,000 generated website sessions
• Over 65,000 users on the campaign landing page
• Over 20,000 votes for venues in the campaign on the eco-rating platform

The campaign results provided by the client are:

• In practice, the campaign included:
  • 200 venues from Sofia,
  • 207 venues from Burgas,
  • 103 venues from Plovdiv;
• Thanks to active communication, over 20,000 users have participated so far in the eco-rating platform with votes for their favorite participating venues.
• A total of 60 venues with the best results from the three cities were awarded by ECOPACK for their participation in the campaign;