The Work

Great Arkansas Cleanup

Each year, the state spends nearly $5 million picking up roadside litter. As a strategic partner with other state agencies in the fight against litter, the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission promotes the Great Arkansas Cleanup (GAC), a massive statewide volunteer litter-pickup campaign, each fall (September, October and November). Litter-pickup events are organized across the state by local coordinators who recruit volunteers to participate in the local effort. The Keep Arkansas Beautiful office staff, a statewide GAC coordinator and Mangan Holcomb Partners public relations staff provide support to local coordinators to organize and promote successful events. In 2007, the campaign objectives were:

• Increase volunteerism for local cleanup events by 2.5% (the number of volunteers has held steady at about 20,000 each year for the past five years, so it is more important to maintain the number of volunteers from year to year than to increase)
  
• Provide local event coordinators with customizable, effective promotional materials
  
• Brand the GAC with coordinators and volunteers
  
  

The flagship execution of the 2007 GAC statewide promotional effort was the TV spot. Completely animated and interpreting the choreographed dance steps of a local professional dancer, “Litterman” comes to life to clean up his community by picking up litter and tossing it into a nearby wastebasket, landscaping with a hoe, trading it for a rake, then a paintbrush – all tools of the GAC “trade.” As the spot comes to an end, Litterman steps into his circle of yellow and stabs his litter-pickup stick into the ground as his Do Something – Join the Great Arkansas Cleanup message reverberates on the screen. A complementary radio public service announcement was also produced.

The Mangan Holcomb Partners public relations department also created a CD toolkit of customizable publicity materials, including a poster, small-size print public service announcements and a news release for coordinators to use as local volunteer-recruitment tools. Other campaign collateral created by Mangan Holcomb Partners and provided to local event coordinators for distribution to volunteers included T-shirts, stickers, vehicle static clings, temporary tattoos and “Volunteers Picking Up Litter” event signs. All collateral materials prominently featured Litterman and his Do Something message.

The 2007 Great Arkansas Cleanup produced these impressive results:

• 72 local coordinators in 51 of 75 Arkansas counties organized 190 events
  
• 20,384 volunteers donated 82,688 hours of time
  
• 198 articles, announcements and/or photos appeared in the state’s newspapers
  
• 74 print media outlets and three TV stations publicized GAC events
  
• 3,566 hits were recorded on the GAC pages of the Keep Arkansas Beautiful website

The GAC campaign also earned Mangan Holcomb Partners the Best of Show Prism and Public Service Prism from the Arkansas Public Relations Society of America, marking the fourth consecutive year that the agency has won the Public Service Prism for the GAC campaign.

Put the power of ideas to work for you! To learn more, email Sharon Tallach Vogelpohl.