Everyone knows you don't mess with Texas. In fact, that was just the problem four years ago when the 12-year-old anti-litter campaign was awarded to Tuerff-Davis EnviroMedia.
The campaign moniker was so well received by Texans everywhere that it had become something of a tourist slogan and had lost its impact as an environmental message.
The EnviroMedia team set out to change all that by putting the "mess" back in "Don't Mess with Texas."
It's a Dirty Job
The firm conducted groundbreaking research on Texas litter by sending researchers out into the field to collect more than 20,000 pieces of trash and analyze it. The litter was
compared to litter collected in a similar study in 1995 and provided the PR team with an arsenal of information. First, the state's biggest litterers were no longer pickup-truck-
driving males from 18-34 (the target audience for the campaign in previous years). Now, males and females under the age of 24 were responsible for most of the trash on Texan
highways. Further research showed that while 96 percent of Texans were aware of the Don't Mess with Texas campaign, one in three admitted to ongoing "trashy" behavior.
In prior years, the campaign had primarily been driven by TV and radio PSAs. Now, the campaign began focusing on a PR-driven effort to reach Texas litterers about the most
common types of trash on the roads. Fast food and cigarette butts in particular were a major focus for the campaign.
EnviroMedia launched a "Vote Don't Mess with Texas" promotion that allowed young Texans to choose their favorite from a trove of 50 classic PSAs. Ballots were accepted online
at dontmesswithtexas.org and through in-store promotions by local grocery chain H-E-B and Coca-Cola. A Willie Nelson TV PSA, "Mamas, tell all your babies, 'Don't mess with
Texas,'" was the hands-down winner, and a new PSA featured Nelson, while media statewide covered the results of the vote, which was particularly newsworthy during the 1998
election season.
Corporate partners like H-E-B and Coke became a key element of the campaign. "Our key challenge was the budget for this campaign," says Valerie Davis, principal with Tuerff-
Davis EnviroMedia. "At $2 million a year for PR and paid advertising, with Texas' 18 media markets, we have to create ways to give Texas the biggest bang for a very limited
buck."
EnviroMedia staffers went after partnerships with organizations whose customers were the biggest litter producers. Since fast food packaging comprises 20 percent of Texas
litter, Sonic and Dairy Queen made for ideal partners. The restaurants placed litter prevention messages and the "Don't Mess with Texas" logo on store windows, cups, bags, bumper
stickers and litter bags. Some corporate partners tagged existing television advertising with the anti-litter message. Corporate sponsors eventually included Home Depot, McCoys,
Sonic, Dairy Queen, H-E-B Grocery Co., 7-11, Coca-Cola, Gulf States Toyota, University of Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech.
As the campaign has evolved, EnviroMedia has increasingly homed in on the teens and twenty-somethings responsible for most of the state's litter. Early this year, the team
launched a new element of the overall campaign aimed at the demographic it has dubbed "Gen L" (Generation Litter). The campaign included an advertising component along with a
powerful new PR pull: the results of new research that showed that litter had dropped a dramatic 52 percent over the past seven years of the "Don't Mess with Texas" campaign. The
story caught the attention of media, dominating news coverage for two days in Texas, with more than 100 TV news stories and nearly 2.5 million impressions in papers like The
Dallas Morning News, The Houston Chronicle and The Fort Worth-Star Telegram.
Results
Milestones for the campaign include a 52 percent drop in litter since 1995, a 70 percent drop in cigarette butt litter since 1995, a 20 percent increase in the number of Texans
who know "Don't Mess with Texas" is an anti-litter slogan, and a slew of awards from local and national PR associations.
Perhaps most telling, however, is that EnviroMedia was just awarded the contract for "Don't Mess With Texas" by the Texas Department of Transportation for another four-year
period. "The new contract starts Sept. 1, and we're going to take the campaign directly to Gen L," Davis says (see sidebar).
(Davis, 512/476-4368 ext. 301)
Campaign Stats
Timeframe: The campaign was launched in 1985; EnviroMedia took over in 1998, and "Don't Mess with Texas" is still going strong.
Budget: $2 million/year, supplemented by assistance from corporate sponsors.
Consultants of Cool
The EnviroMedia team has worked closely with a team of 10 kids in the Gen L target audience dubbed "consultants of cool." The consultants have served as a sounding board as
EnviroMedia has developed the campaign for coming years. While the client has not given final approvals, the kids gave the idea of a tour that would allow them to "experience" the
campaign "a resounding endorsement," Davis says. "We ran lots of ideas past them, and they said, if you get a bus, park it, have some music and give us free stuff, we'll come."
Davis calls the experiential element a "third dimension" of the campaign that has been missing. "Kids tell us if we gave them a litter bag they'd use it," she says, so the aim
of the campaign will be to try to make direct contacts with kids.