The Fun Theory

Volkswagen Sweden has spearheaded a public initiative* aptly titled "The Fun Theory"-- the premise being that positive behavioral change can be implemented by having fun. To test the theory, VW put three experiments in place, and in each case found that fun does, in fact, have the capacity to change behavior for the better:

Experiment #1: The Bottle Bank Arcade

Experiment #2: The Piano Staircase

Experiment #3: The World's Deepest Trash Can

As cool as the experiments are in and of themselves, the best part about VW's campaign is that it's success as a viral video has prompted the company to host a Fun Theory competition. If you can identify a problem and then find a fun way to fix it-- ta-da, you could be up $5,000. That, my friends, is marketing genius. You can bet that there will be some awesome concepts that'll come out of this and who's going to get the credit for prompting it? Kudos to you, Volkswagen.

So yeah I think it's a great idea and if anyone can think of a way to make picking up dog shit fun, let me know. I'll split the five grand.

Check out the official fun theory website here, the competition guidelines here, and the jury bios here.

* viral marketing campaign.