Operating under the assumption that more people would recycle if it was fun, Coca-Cola and Grey Dhaka placed six “Happiness Arcade” machines around Dhaka, Bangladesh. The machines were operated by inserting an empty Coca-Cola bottle and played a branded version of arcade relic Pong. As some might remember (and Adweek readers noticed), DDB Stockholm made the same hypothesis regarding fun and recycling back in 2009 (dubbing it their “Fun Theory”) with their similar “Bottle Bank Arcade” campaign for Volkswagen.
“Bottle Bank Arcade” differed in that it turned recycling itself into a game: lights above bottle deposits lit up and, the faster you inserted the bottle, the more points you got. It seems like it was both more fun and a better way to promote recycling than Coca-Cola’s more branded effort, in which it appears the only type of bottle that makes the game work is a Coca-Cola bottle.
At the very least, these seem like two executions of the same idea. We’ve included DDB’s “Bottle Bank Arcade” after the jump for comparison.
Now let us know what you think.