Dole Packaged Foods, Spark Foundry and Upworthy partnered with Glass Entertainment Group to tell the story of three families who are gearing up for the first day of school. With a new school year brings new teachers, new classrooms, new friends and new expectations. This can bring on some first day jitters to a student. In this mini documentary called The Caring Tree, three young students share to the camera some of their anxieties and fears about starting the new year. As the first day of school arrives, parents and teachers plan a surprise for the students by revealing the Caring Tree, a life-sized tree filled with Dole Fruit Bowls™. Each fruit bowl has messages of love, inclusion, joy, hope, community and possibility to the kids to read and share with one another to settle any nerves or concerns about the new school year.
Glass Entertainment Group wanted to share the authentic stories of three families and their concerns about going back to school. The intention was to highlight each story so that the narratives could resonate with many people. The project’s strategy was to highlight the importance of community, inclusion and love, especially when starting a new school year. Dole Packaged Foods knows that going back to school can be scary but with the right words of encouragement, or a loving message from mom or dad, many of those fears quickly wash away. The Caring Tree campaign captures this for audiences to watch, comment and share!
To achieve this, Glass Entertainment Group partnered with a local school that allowed us to recreate the first day of school with their community. The school opened their grounds and their classrooms, while inviting twenty-five families and teachers to participate in the day of filming. Production also selected three families from the school’s community to highlight and tell their specific back to school story. Through interviews and b-roll, the families and their children shared some of the concerns and anxieties. And to capture the first day of school, our cameras were rolling as kids arrived, got let out of class for recess, ran to the Caring Tree and enjoyed fruit bowls under the tree as one big community!
Launching over Upworthy’s Facebook page, views and engagement took off, as followers commented and shared the video over their newsfeeds. It started a positive dialogue about community, family, and the power of caring and inclusion within the comments section of the video!
Engagement:
4,100,000 views
8,000 likes
226 comments
712 shares
