We Americans like our cars. While car sales are in the cellar due to the economy, given relatively low gas prices I think if not for the economy, we would be buying yet more gas engine cars with poor fuel efficiency standards. The car industry that re-emerges in the US when the economy improves is anyone’s guess at the moment. For years the Big Three said we would not buy alternative fuel cars, that they could not create a market. Old habits do die hard, but could things change?

How many of us know exactly how much water we consume, precisely the amount of  CO2 emissions we produce with our current car and driving patterns, or how much energy we waste each day because our house is purely insulated? If we did know, would it change our habits? The answer is not an ad campaign, but a very good one in Sweden illustrates the impact of an information campaign.

Acne Advertising was charged with increasing ridership for an airport coach service for Sweden’s largest airport. Solution? Compare carbon emissions between the average car with its 1.8 people and a coach that can carry 50 riders. To do it they erected a 300-ton sculpture of scrap coaches along the main road to the airport starting an interesting dialogue in the blogoshere and everywhere else. This was coupled with a web cam that counted all the cars passing to the airport and compared what carbon emissions would be if all those drivers had used the coach service. Posters, print and other traditional media were integrated into the campaign. Take a look. http://creativity-online.com/work/view?seed=e364d8bf

They indicate that ticket sales increased, so behavior changed. Might we learn something to help coax us out of our cars?