Big People Toys to Influence Public Policy & Behavior

Volkswagen just launched The Fun Theory, an online, off-brand marketing campaign.

The first two projects are:

• Piano Staircase [youtube]
  A subway staircase is converted to an electronic piano — ala Tom Hanks in Big — to encourage taking the stairs rather than the escalator.
• The World’s Deepest Bin [youtube]
  To eliminate litter, a trash container is outfitted with sensors and speakers so falling trash triggers one of those awesome cheap electronic bomb dropping sound effects.

First of all, I wish I had thought of these. Secondly, what’s fantastic about these simple playful technologies is their implications for larger social, behavioral, and public policy issues.

Public policy is the balancing act of penalties and rewards to influence mass behavior toward some goal. Humans, of course, respond to penalties—as often by subverting them as by conforming to them. However, conversely, the rewards of most public policy systems aren’t all that enticing. We eat better and have better health and lower healthcare costs. It’s a good thing, sure, but you don’t find hoards of people fighting over access to read government nutrition guides.

So what if we go lateral or orthogonal to the normal reward system? Reward not the end goal but the immediate process of contributing to it? Blamo. Play as reward and playful technologies as enablers of public policy.