fighting litter with 9 point font

Somewhere on this blog... while saying that I couldn't figure out what Tim Horton's educational campaign against litter consisted of (ie what were they doing actually?), I wrote something like "and if you think about the traditional dark brown tim horton's cup, there sure as hell isn't any Do Not Litter message written on that cup."

Well I was wrong. I picked one of those up off the road today to take a look at it, and sure enough, there's a do not litter message at the very bottom of the cup (click on the photo to enlarge a bit so that you can actually read the text).



Different Tim Horton's representatives have stated that while happy to fight littering, the company will only use educational means to do so. They will not consider any means that involve money.

For example:

In the meantime, the New Brunswick Solid Waste Association says consumers should be forced to pay a deposit when buying beverages in disposable cups.

[Tim Horton's rep] Johnston rejected that idea.

"We don't need another deposit system," he said. "Our industry and our communities can deal with it without taxing the consumer any more than they already are."

And this one:

Greg Skinner, a Tim Hortons spokesman, says the chain already recycles cups in the Moncton area and is willing to talk to anyone about doing likewise elsewhere. But a deposit-return system isn't in the cards. "It's a tax, and we don't see a tax as a way of stopping litter," says Skinner. "The key is education, letting people know that it's unacceptable."

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My thought is that - as any Canadian who walks through his/her city can see from all the Tim Horton's cups on the roads - the educational campaign against litter isn't working. Especially not the highly visual "please don't litter" message they put at the very bottom of their cups.

I would have loved to have been in the room when they were figuring out what size of font to use for the littering message. The conversation would have been something like this:

Okay, so we have to be able to say that we're doing something about litter, but not give the impression that we actually have a littering problem."

So like a message on the cups?

Yeah - but subtle - like "Hey customers, don't litter, but if you do no big deal, because it isn't really that big a problem."

So what do you think... I can zip it all the way down to like 5 point font if you want?

No... five will make it look like we REALLY don't want to deal with this... it has to be mildly respectable, but still not very noticeable.

So eight? nine?

Do me up a nine and we'll see how it looks.