Test

What’s the best way to motivate consumers to recycle their old clothes?

10.9k participants

Setup

The focus of the test was how brands should balance financial and environmental value props in incentivizing consumers to participate in circular clothing programs. To that end, the two assets were designed to test performance across the following A/B split:

  • AMessaging strategies focused on payment for old clothes
  • BMessaging strategies focused on the ease of recycling old clothes

Test Results

Attention Share and Engagement Share reflect the percentage of test-wide scoring accounted for by individual variants or demographics. Read more below in the Methodology section.

Sample Size
Total: 10,929 Gender: Male: 4,575 Female: 5,994 Age: 18-24: 155 25-34: 1,915 35-44: 2,663 45-54: 2,200 55-64: 2,170 65+: 1,595
Pay You to Declutter Easy to Recycle
Attention Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will capture eyeballs in the wild. Read more in the Methodology section below.

59% 41%
Engagement Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will elicit a meaningful reaction from the audience. Read more in the Methodology section below.

62% 38%

Aggregate Insights

Messaging around financial benefits produced more attention at the top of the funnel and more engagement deeper down the funnel.

The general consistency between the attention and engagement shares for both assets suggests that top-of-funnel consumer interest in financial benefits is matched by genuine consumer passion as well — i.e., money wins hearts as well as eyeballs.

Further testing could evaluate the overlap between financial and environmental concerns by exploring whether marrying both value props in one message produces more attention and engagement than either individually.

Gender-based attention and engagement shares reflect the relative attention or engagement per gender for each variant. Read more below in the Methodology section.

Sample Size
Total: 10,929 Gender: Male: 4,575 Female: 5,994 Age: 18-24: 155 25-34: 1,915 35-44: 2,663 45-54: 2,200 55-64: 2,170 65+: 1,595
Pay You to Declutter Easy to Recycle
Attention Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will capture eyeballs in the wild. Read more in the Methodology section below.

Male
31.1% 17.9%
Female
28% 23%
Engagement Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will elicit a meaningful reaction from the audience. Read more in the Methodology section below.

Male
20.1% 18.5%
Female
39.6% 21.8%

Gender Insights

The female audience paid comparable attention to both assets but engaged with the payment asset at a markedly high rate.

The male audience paid more attention to the payment asset but engaged with both assets at comparable rates.

Further testing could target the male audience with financial messages related to other circular opportunities — e.g., making money on old shoes or electronics — to determine whether engagement is stronger in other categories.

Age-based attention and engagement shares reflect the relative attention or engagement per age bracket for each variant. Read more below in the Methodology section.

Sample Size
Total: 10,929 Gender: Male: 4,575 Female: 5,994 Age: 18-24: 155 25-34: 1,915 35-44: 2,663 45-54: 2,200 55-64: 2,170 65+: 1,595
Pay You to Declutter Easy to Recycle
Attention Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will capture eyeballs in the wild. Read more in the Methodology section below.

18-24
7.9% 3.6%
25-34
7.2% 7.2%
35-44
11.8% 8.1%
45-54
9.9% 6.6%
55-64
9.1% 8.3%
65+
10.2% 10%
Engagement Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will elicit a meaningful reaction from the audience. Read more in the Methodology section below.

18-24
0% 0%
25-34
13.5% 8.3%
35-44
23.7% 3.4%
45-54
5.9% 7.5%
55-64
5.8% 8.2%
65+
10.9% 12.9%

Age Insights

The engagement advantage of the payment message was concentrated in younger audiences, peaking with the 35-44 demographic.

Older audiences showed a slight engagement preference for the recycling message.

Further testing could target older audiences with additional variants to better understand their recycling motivations — e.g., helping themselves by decluttering their homes vs. helping the planet by keeping their old clothes out of landfills.

Methodology

This test was conducted with two message variants and a prequalified TCD audience of 4,540 likely adopters. Among those participants, 5.2% paid measurable attention to the test assets and 1% registered measurable engagement. 

Attention Score measures the likelihood that a message will capture eyeballs in the wild. It’s calculated using the rate at which test participants respond to a CTA to learn more about the subject.

Engagement Score measures the likelihood that a message will elicit a meaningful response from the audience. It’s calculated using a proprietary algorithm that weights measurable metrics — shares, saves, likes, etc. — in a way that has proven to be meaningfully correlated (r > .5) to real-world conversion behavior.

Attention Share and Engagement Share reflect the percentage of test-wide scoring accounted for by individual variants or demographics. For example, an engagement share of 25% means the variant or demographic in question accounted for 25% of the cumulative engagement score produced by all segments in the test.

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