F.Y.I.

Republic of Everyone wins mobile association

Sustainability specialist Republic of Everyone has won the advertising account of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association after a pitch.

The announcement:

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) has awarded its MobileMuster account to sustainability specialist agency Republic of Everyone following a competitive pitch.

The agency was appointed earlier this year and has been working with the MobileMuster team to develop a brand and communications strategy that will launch in June.

MobileMuster is the official not-for-profit recycling program of the mobile phone industry. The main aim of the program is to keep mobile phones out of landfill but also to liberate Australian’s of the 22 million unused mobile phones they are hording in their homes and businesses. Recycling these phones means environmentally damaging phone parts and compounds stay out of landfill, and an enormous amount of materials can be recovered and reused.

Since launching the recycling program in 1998 the organisation has recycled 886,000kgs of mobile phones and their accessories. As well as successfully increasing awareness of mobile phone recycling to 84%, reducing the amount of mobiles going to landfill to 2% and increasing collection rates of what people no longer keep to 50%.

However, shifting people’s desire away from keeping their really old phones has been less successful with every household having at least two old mobiles and their chargers lying around unused. Republic of Everyone will be responsible for the entire brand and communication strategy and execution, including advertising, website redesign, online marketing and PR.

Rose Read Recycling Manager at AMTA said of the appointment, “People’s desire to hoard mobile phones has been the biggest challenge to MobileMuster. We see Republic of Everyone helping us solve this dilemma by presenting a more compelling story as to why we should all recycle our old mobiles and accessories and not hang on to them. The mobile phone industry members who fund MobileMuster are very excited to be working with such a progressive agency.

Matt Perry, Partner at Republic of Everyone said, “We have been interested in working on MobileMuster since we started our business. This organisation is evidence of smart sustainability thinking going on in Australia today. Old mobile phones are practically useless and valueless in the minds of their owners. Yet people have such a strong emotional attachment that prevents them from setting the phones free. When mobile phones are collected, broken down and recycled more than 90% of the materials are reused. Our job is to make recycling your old mobile phone a natural part of the process when people replace them. This is a really exciting opportunity to build sustainability into everyday actions which is the kind of work we love to do.”

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