The United Nations ad that hits the mark for social change

Source: LinkedIn, UN Environment Programme

According to the Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) model, a campaign for social change shows, at a minimum, three elements.

Barriers to change. Desired behaviour.

A message that connects the two.

Let's look at this United Nations spot which presents them with simplicity and assertiveness.

Remember, we're commenting on the spot here, not the entire campaign.

Audience: consumers / general public.

• Desired behaviour (the change we want to achieve): reduce food waste. Simply put: stop throwing food away .

• Barrier to change: people are not aware of the impact that our daily behaviours around food have on the collective.

The commercial translates this into different situations.

At home, we buy and prepare more food than we need and save the "leftovers" for "later" until that "later" ends up in the trash.

In restaurants, eating with our eyes..we order more than we can eat, and we waste what's left over.

A child decides he doesn't like his birthday cake, and the adults allow that food to end up in the trash.

And that's where another important element comes in: the responsibility of adults , both for not setting limits and for reproducing irresponsible behaviours with food themselves.

The ad makes the barrier visible with figures: it shows the enormous amount of food we waste every day.

• Message: Food is for eating, not for wasting.

Does the ad explain what concrete actions we can take to reduce the problem? Not directly. And that's not a shortcoming. Because the ad is part of a broader campaign that explains what you, I, and everyone can do about it.

You can see it here : And download the guide " Ending food waste starts with you ."