Newsflash: Hubbub promoted to Premier League

Hubbub's litter and recycling campaigns have been put to the test in some of the country's most crowded places, from London's commuter hot-spots to packed bank holiday beaches. We have run events at dozens of community football days around the UK, but never been scouted by one of the big clubs. So when we got the opportunity to step up to the Premier League and engage football fans at Brighton & Hove Albion F.C.'s Amex stadium, we stripped off our training kits and sprinted straight into the action.

Our #StreetsAhead campaign launched in Brighton & Hove last year, and included everything from silent disco beach cleans to Litter Lifeguards as we spread the message that litter dropped on the street or left on the beaches ends up in the sea. Over 2000 people took part and our partners at Brighton & Hove Council have kept the momentum going. But a football stadium on match day is a different proposition altogether: it goes from deserted to jam-packed in just a couple of hours, and everyone is intent on one thing only: correctly recycling their... oh no, hold on - it's the football match. They are there to watch the match, not to learn about litter. Maybe that's why so much gets dropped: our researchers found hundreds of cigarette butts and food and drink packaging items outside the ground despite plenty of bins and almost constant efforts from the club's cleaning teams.

So how can we make our message stick and change behaviours? We dug into our football managers' handbook and found some key principles:

1. Get the crowd behind you

It didn't take our collective brainpower long to work out that people at a football match might be interested in football. So we took our award-winning behaviour change and communication techniques and gave them a football spin. Our bright bins were customised with metal goals to encourage playful interaction. Actors dressed as referees exhorted fans to give recycling their best shot, and brandished 'blue cards' as rewards, which could be traded in at a Trashconverter stall for club merchandise such as key chains and stickers. We made a giant football sculpture out of rubbish collected at the previous home game against Spurs and displayed it by the club shop, which drew in curious fans. Actors and council staff were chosen (or volunteered!) because they loved football and so spoke the same language as fans. It all added up to a credible, coherent and genuinely fun set of activities that made sense to fans and got the crowds involved.

2. Take your chances

The Premier League is unforgiving to those who miss their opportunities. We knew that we only had a few seconds to grab fans' attention on their way into the stadium and at half time. Everything we did was big, bright, loud and placed prominently to maximise our chances of making an impact on our audience.

Over 400 people visited the Trashconverter stall to collect a reward and thousands more checked out the sculpture, used the goal bins and saw the refs in action.

3. Adapt your tactics to the match

Brighton's manager Chris Hughton is a master pragmatist, taking the right approach to the right games, and adjusting as he goes. Our initial plan was to measure the impact of our campaign on litter counts around and inside the stadium by making counts at several home games over a couple of months. It soon became apparent that wide variety of variables (from the weather to the result) and the amount of other activities going on outside the stadium on the day would make our evaluations too unreliable to base firm claims on. So we switched tactics and are measuring the impact of our communications by talking to fans at the next home game about what they remember from the day. If the message hit home then we know the interventions were noticed and we can look for future opportunities to do meaningful testing.

4. Football is a team sport

Saturday's event at the Amex was a collaboration between Hubbub, Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. and Brighton & Hove City Council. The club not only gave us permissions but also included articles in the match day programme and on their website, and donated hundreds of prizes to reward responsible fans. The council brought and manned the Trashconverter, staffed the litter counts and promoted the event to local media. And we were supported financially by Defra and WRAP's Litter Innovation Fund, which has meant that we are able to donate seven goal bins to Brighton & Hove Albion FC's community pitch, which runs programmes for juniors, disabled and other local groups and has over 60,000 users a year.

That's a really positive note to end on for this phase of our #StreetsAhead campaign. We would love to work with more football clubs and stadiums, and ideally create a longer term campaign to make the most impact possible. If you are interested, then please get in touch.