We Have Done Our Part. What Will You Do?

I was sitting on a bus in Zaragoza when an advert caught my attention. It was not beautiful, subtle or particularly sophisticated. In fact, its most prominent visual was a large pile of dog mess.

The message read: “We invested €65 million to keep our streets clean. We are counting on you.” Beneath the image was a second line: “Don’t dirty what we clean together.”

It made me smile, but it also made me think.

The advert does something that has become surprisingly unusual in public communication. It tells people what the city has done, establishes the scale of that commitment, and then places a small but unmistakable responsibility in the hands of the person reading it. We have invested. We are doing the work. Now, what will you do?

There is humour in it, certainly. The enormous dog mess makes the subject impossible to misunderstand. There is also a little guilt, although not enough to feel accusatory. Most importantly, there is an invitation to identify yourself as one of the people who helps to keep Zaragoza clean.

That combination is powerful.

Responsibility without a lecture

A great deal of modern public marketing seems uncomfortable with the idea of personal responsibility. Campaigns often try to educate us, reassure us or make the desired behaviour as convenient as possible. Those things matter, but something has been lost in the process.

We have become good at telling people what services are available to them. We are less confident about telling people what is expected of them in return.

The Zaragoza advert does not pretend that clean streets are something the local government can deliver alone. It makes the relationship explicit. The city can invest money, employ people, provide bins and organise cleaning services. But the public still has a part to play. No amount of municipal spending can compensate completely for people who believe that the condition of a shared space is somebody else’s responsibility.

Crucially, the message does not begin by blaming the public. It begins with evidence of institutional effort: “We invested €65 million.”

That gives the request legitimacy. The council is not standing at the side issuing instructions while asking everyone else to do the work. It has acted first. Only then does it say, “We are counting on you.”

This is not merely a demand for compliance. It is an appeal to reciprocity.

“What can you do?” is a powerful question

The best behavioural messages do not simply tell us which action is correct. They encourage us to decide what kind of person we are.

Most of us want to think of ourselves as considerate, responsible people. We want to believe that we contribute to our communities and treat shared spaces with respect. A message that activates that identity can be more powerful than one that merely explains a rule.

“Pick up after your dog” is an instruction.

“Don’t dirty what we clean together” is something more. It asks whether you see yourself as part of the “we.”

That small difference matters. The first message creates a transaction between an authority and an individual. The second creates a relationship between citizens. It reminds us that the street is not an abstract public asset maintained by an invisible organisation. It belongs, in a meaningful sense, to everyone who uses it.

The desired behaviour then becomes an expression of identity. I do not leave this mess because I am the sort of person who looks after the place where I live. I do not undermine the work of others. I play my part.

When that internal identification happens, enforcement becomes less important. The person is no longer behaving well only because there might be a fine or because a sign tells them to. They are behaving consistently with the person they believe themselves to be.

A little guilt can be useful

Guilt has acquired a bad reputation in marketing, sometimes deservedly. Heavy-handed moralising can make people defensive. Shame can push people away from a message altogether. Nobody likes being spoken to as though they are the problem.

But this advert uses guilt lightly and intelligently.

It does not say, “People like you are ruining Zaragoza.” It says, in effect, “A great deal of collective effort is going into this. Please do not casually undo it.”

That creates just enough discomfort to prompt reflection. The reader is invited to imagine the absurdity of spending €65 million on clean streets only for someone to leave dog mess on the pavement. The humour softens the rebuke, but it does not remove it.

There is a useful distinction here. Shame tells someone that they are a bad person. Constructive guilt reminds them that a particular action would be inconsistent with the good person they already believe themselves to be.

The first threatens identity. The second recruits it.

The missing half of the social contract

Public services increasingly communicate in the language of delivery. They tell us what has been funded, improved, opened or provided. The citizen is positioned primarily as a customer and the organisation as a supplier.

That language has its place, but it can also weaken the sense of shared ownership on which public life depends.

A city is not clean simply because it has a cleansing budget. A transport system does not work well simply because buses have been purchased. Recycling does not happen merely because coloured bins have been distributed. Public spaces, services and institutions depend on millions of small decisions made by the people who use them.

When communication leaves that out, it leaves out half of the social contract.

“This is what we have done. What can you do?” restores the missing half. It acknowledges institutional responsibility while refusing to let the individual disappear from the story.

It is especially effective because the order matters. An organisation must be able to demonstrate its own effort before asking citizens for theirs. If streets are visibly neglected, a poster demanding better behaviour will feel hollow. If people experience poor services, telling them to take greater responsibility may sound like blame being transferred downwards.

Reciprocity only works when both sides can see that the other is contributing.

Marketing should make participation visible again

There is a wider lesson here for anyone trying to influence behaviour, whether in government, business or within an organisation.

We should ask more often whether our communication gives people a meaningful role. Does it only provide information, or does it create participation? Does it tell people what the organisation wants, or help them see why their own behaviour matters? Does it threaten them with consequences, or invite them to act consistently with a positive identity?

The Zaragoza advert succeeds because it contains a simple story.

We have invested in something we all value. People are working to protect it. You are part of the community that benefits. Your actions can either support that effort or undermine it. We trust you to choose.

That is a much richer message than “Please pick up after your dog,” even if the immediate instruction is exactly the same.

Perhaps this is a lost art because we have become wary of sounding judgemental. Perhaps organisations fear that asking anything of the public will provoke criticism. Or perhaps modern marketing has become so focused on reducing friction that it has forgotten the value of appealing to conscience.

But responsibility does not have to be communicated through scolding. It can be built through humour, reciprocity and a well-judged appeal to who people believe themselves to be.

Sometimes the most effective nudge is not to make an action easier or to threaten a penalty. It is simply to say:

This is what we have done.

We are counting on you.

What will you do?