For the Black Forest® brand, the forest is a huge part of who we are. It’s in our name and at the root of our commitment to organic ingredients. But in a time when record-setting wildfires are threatening forest ecosystems around the world, we knew we had to step up to ensure that our forests will be here for future generations to enjoy.
So we decided to partner with the National Forest Foundation to do something about it. We share their mission of helping people enjoy the forests through outdoor experiences, and their commitment to forest health and conservation. So on National Love a Tree Day, we joined forces to get forest lovers everywhere to help us donate $100,000 and plant 100,000 new trees. To do it, we would need to amplify the conversation beyond the reach of our 6,500 followers on social. We developed a campaign that brought our mission to life in a shareable, scroll-stopping way.
To kick off the first-ever Black Forest® brand cause marketing initiative, we launched our campaign on May 16th (#LoveATreeDay) and laid the foundation for an ongoing commitment to social impact.
Knowing that simple social prompts elicit the most engagement, we started with a straight-forward call-to-action, inviting Instagram to “plant” digital trees using the “🐻❤️🌲” emoji combination in the comments section of our post. For every digital tree “planted,” the Black Forest® brand would work with the National Forest Foundation to plant a real one in areas affected by wildfires. We knew leading with strong visuals and crafting a short prompt were key to spreading awareness and quickly breaking through on social, allowing users to easily share and participate.
To build buzz around the campaign, we rewarded participants in real-time, using Instagram’s tag feature to credit planters with their own digital tree in the post.
To further amplify our message, we partnered with influencers in the nature and wellness space to spread the word. Each of our 13 partners developed individualized creative, fun, and engaging content that drove participation and traction on social media. We also tapped our partner, The National Forest Foundation, who posted about the ongoing campaign on their social channels. In addition, mindbodygreen featured the campaign in an editorial piece to further raise awareness and drive readers to our #LoveATreeDay social post. To keep the momentum going across our channels, we tracked the growth of our digital forest, showing participants how their individual act contributed to the larger cause.
This grabbed the attention of large and verified influencers such as Tyler Oakley, Gardens of the Sun, and Mr. Tommy Blades who all who participated and organically shared the post to millions of followers.
As a result, the National #LoveATreeDay campaign proved to be a rallying cry for consumers, creating an incredible impact on our world and ultimately allowing Black Forest® to plant 100,000 trees by 2020.
The #LoveATreeDay campaign brought forth record-breaking numbers for the Black Forest® brand, sprouting a new cause platform for the brand to build on in the coming years. Overall, the two-week campaign raked in a total of 22.2M impressions, and also helped drive 1M impressions to the National Forest Foundation’s website—a huge win for our goal of creating awareness around forest restoration.
On our own handle, the content drove 23x the brand’s usual engagement on Instagram, totaling more than 64K engagements. The #LoveATreeDay campaign was one of the highest performing pieces of content on our platform to date. In total, $100,000 was donated to the National Forest Foundation, helping to plant 100,000 trees by 2020. We believe all forests are important because they provide places for families to connect together and rediscover nature. This #LoveATreeDay campaign brought us one step closer to ensuring these forests are around for years to come. And in the end, the numbers spoke for themselves:
