2017
“It’s just a small pile of poop, and there’s nowhere to throw it out anyway.” That’s how many dog owners see the problem of canine waste. How do we get them to recognize the true scale of the issue?
Can an elephant strolling through the city at night draw attention to dog droppings? Absolutely! All it takes is a bit of imagination and a willingness to use unconventional solutions.
A single pile might not make much of an impression, but Poznań sees around 50,000 new piles every day—one for each dog in the city. Since their owners can’t visualize the scope, we helped them by invoking elephants and simple math. One elephant produces about 100 kg of poop daily. That’s equivalent to what 1,000 dogs produce. In other words, every day Poznań soils itself with the equivalent of 50 elephants. Suddenly, it’s not such a small matter, is it?
Standard measures weren’t working, so we went for something more out-of-the-box.
A viral video featuring an elephant roaming the city, heaps of droppings placed around Poznań—this is how we generated buzz. The educational follow-up took place on social media and a dedicated website.