No prizes for guessing the inspiration behind this little idea. Advertising agency DDB and Volkswagen teamed up for a little experiment they called the Fun Theory, an ambitious attempt to try and change people's lazy behavior in the Swedish capital. The transformation of a subway staircase into a piano increased stair use by 66 per cent. (I pity the poor creative who had to sit in the metro station for two days on the trot and count the travellers.)
Obesity continues to be a global problem. Interestingly, consumers believe that food intake and lack of physical activity are equally responsible for obesity in society. In terms of their own lives, however, consumers are more likely to cite physical activity as the method they would initially pursue to lose weight rather than changing or reducing their food intake. (People love their food!) Exercise is imagined to be a much easier course of “weight loss” for consumers than is tinkering with their own complex eating patterns. But "imagined" is the key word there.
Ironically, the relative attractiveness of exercise over dieting appears only in principle, most consumers we speak with showed no love of it. In fact, some willingly declared how much they “hate it,” including those who do exercise from time to time. To most consumers “exercise” is some physical activity solely designed around fitness or weight loss; it is not necessarily associated with an enjoyable activity, especially not happy feet taking the stairs. There is a sense that, in the morality of body weight, exercise is a form of punishment, punishment for “letting oneself go.” Making exercise exciting is a frustrating mystery to many consumers. Yet, here they are climbing the stairs. Hats off to DBD and Volkswagen for getting people off their butts with a smile. We love it!
