Advertising for Recycling

This is an example of "social marketing" for publicity that Kizito and I created for the Bic pen company in Kinshasa. It ran on the back page of Bleu/Blanc, our children's mangazine, in 1999. The ad featured a boy named Vata, and was done in the popular comic style much appreciated by Congolese children and adults alike.

The title of the cartoon, Recylage, is French for "recycle." Vata comments on the beauty of nature and then he says, "When I think that my Bic contributes to ecological equilibrium, you might ask how?"

"The plastic is reclycled, that is to say, plastic is reused to make Bic pens. This is not like pencils. When a pencil is used up, it is necessary to cut trees to make other pencils."

Vata continues, walking along a stream, "It is not that I am against pencils.... but I want to affirm that you can use your Bic without danger to this beautiful nature."

The advertisement was notable because it introduced the concept of recycling plastics as well as the idea that pencils cost trees. As simple as it seemed, these cartoon ideas were new ones for the Congolese.