The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2023
Getliņi EKO faked a new landfill to make Riga face its waste
Latvia's Getliņi EKO trolled citizens with signs touting 'an excellent place for a landfill', then revealed the dump fills in six years; unsorted waste fell 2%.
Getliņi EKO
The solution
Latvia buried a large share of its waste, and Getliņi EKO's landfill was filling fast — but citizens never faced the problem, because trash vanishes behind the dump's gates. Awareness campaigns had failed to change sorting behavior.
With White Label/McCann Riga, the company ran a staged provocation: 'An Excellent Place for a Landfill.' It promoted a new landfill for Riga, asked residents to vote for the district they thought deserved it, and put up the slogan in residential areas, deliberately triggering outrage.
After concerned citizens flooded the city council with calls, the campaign revealed the truth: Getliņi EKO would be full in just six years, and Riga would 'sink in waste' unless people reduced and sorted their garbage. The reveal turned manufactured anger into a concrete behavior change.
Effie Europe measured the results: the campaign reached 61% of the defined audience, 37% of people committed to reducing waste, and unsorted waste at the landfill decreased by 2%, earning a Silver Effie for positive change.
Why it worked
- The fake threat made a distant, invisible problem feel local and personal.
- Outrage generated attention and conversation that PSAs never earned.
- The reveal flipped the emotion into action instead of leaving people angry.
- Phased structure (scare, educate, remind) built habits, not just awareness.
What can be applied
When a problem is invisible, manufacture the confrontation: a controlled provocation that makes the threat personal beats abstract education, if the reveal converts the emotion into clear action.
Aftermath
Getliņi EKO's provocation became a regional case study in behavioral communication, winning a Silver Effie Europe in 2023 and recognition at Golden Drum. The landfill operator continued its behavior-change work with community-focused activations as sorting habits took hold, keeping the landfill's finite lifespan at the center of its communications.
Sources
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