The Brief
As part of its Better Connections Plan, Virgin Media O2’s environmental, social and governance strategy, the business has committed to enabling its customers to take 10 million circular actions by 2025, in addition to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2040. The business set out to uncover what was holding people back and we discovered that one in four Brits were unsure what happens to their devices when they get recycled.
The Activity
We partnered with the company’s recycling facility, Ingram Micro Lifecycle, to take media and influencers behind the scenes, demystifying the recycling process to encourage more people to recycle old devices.
Reporters from Evening Standard, Sky News, BBC Look East and Computer Weekly attended and covered the facility across broadcast, online and print.
The campaign went beyond traditional media, including attendees from the UK’s biggest consumer website Money Saving Expert and analyst house CCS Insight, helping us reach even more consumers and industry stakeholders.
Since the tours and subsequent coverage, the number of devices recycled has continued to increase, with Virgin Media O2 projected to hit a major milestone of nearly 4 million devices in the first quarter of 2024.
The Impact
- Reinforced Virgin Media O2’s position as industry leaders in the circular economy through the work done via O2 Recycle
- Secured coverage in top-tier national, business and trade outlets including Sky News, Evening Standard, BBC and Computer Weekly, reaching more than 15 million readers/viewers with our key messaging around the importance of recycling and refurbishing mobile devices
- Supported in increasing the number of devices recycled to nearly 4 million devices (as of March 2024)
- Moved the needle on number of circular actions completed by Virgin Media O2 to 2,438,794 (last reported in June 2023) out of the overall goal of 10 million circular actions overall taken by customers by 2025