A friend sent me this link the other day. It’s a simple little website for a simple little idea:
The Fun Theory.

The theory is this: Changing people’s behaviour is easy if you make it fun.

From that small seed, they’ve developed several short films showing people enjoying themselves while making a small difference to the world. We’ve got musical stairs, the world’s deepest litterbin and an arcade machine that recycles at the same time. Take a look and enjoy.

And you probably won’t see it immediately but you’ll eventually notice a logo on the right hand side and in the last seconds of each film. This site is very discreetly brought to us by Volkswagen (and their ad agency DDB Stockholm). There is certainly no heavy sell going on here – you have to click on the logo before you’ll even see a car – VW are just choosing to associate their brand with entertaining content. Content that also has a social point. Perhaps content that’s a little bit like … oh I don’t know … a sporty, environmentally sexy Golf?

Well, there’s no harm in that. Just like the way the site makes use of its visitors and their willing participation. Shortly there will be new content as visitors start putting forward their own ideas. And in the meantime everyone (me included) is spreading the word, sending links to friends or putting the films on YouTube where they are creating a real buzz with millions of viewings.

Why are we doing VW’s job for them? Because it’s fun :)