How do you “connect users to the harvest" in a world where attention spans are too short and divided to even keep a seedling alive? That was the question Naked Juice asked us to launch their newest product, Tomato Kick. Tomato Kick and its predecessor, Berry Veggie, were to be the inaugural products in a new product line made of vegetable-based drinks. The brand wanted to emphasize the “veggie" in these products and raise awareness of the new line. Naked’s consumers lead busy, on-the-go lifestyles and yet they also want to know the unscrupulous details of where their food comes from – what exactly goes into every bottle? We enabled these users to become their own gardeners by creating the first-ever social media powered-living vegetable garden. The garden grew the six different vegetables featured in the Power Garden juice line and used a combination of environmental, motion, and touch sensors along with Twitter data to shape its dynamic, living personality. The Power Garden sensed when people passed by and literally called out to them for on-site engagement, while also updating digital signage dynamically with fun facts about each veggie plot. Spectators had the most fun when they touched the vegetables – and each veggie had a unique voice that responded to touch. Whistling, giggling, and singing are just a few sounds heard at the garden daily. The garden was strategically located along a commuter route through downtown Chicago. Its presence in a concrete jungle made it even more noticeable. For those not onsite, the garden had its own Twitter handle, @ThePowerGarden, that responded in real-time to tweets. Any tweet that mentioned “water"-related keywords activated the garden’s sprinkler system, allowing anyone to tend to the garden. The garden also had its own UStream page where others could watch the sprinklers turn on and off as they tweeted. In support of Naked Juice’s charity partnership with Wholesome Wave, which provides fresh produce to underserved communities, all the vegetables grown in the Power Garden were donated to the Washburn Culinary Institute, a Wholesome Wave affiliate in Chicago, to close the campaign. To celebrate this donation, Naked Juice hosted a Harvest Day event at the end of the installation where students from Washburn attended a class at the garden, harvested the vegetables, and cooked Naked Juice recipes using the garden’s produce. This execution was unique in that our OOH media component was inherently tied to digital media as well – the garden could not have survived without Twitter engagement from users. This interaction between media channels created a unique experience for users that influenced both their digital and physical worlds in a way never seen before. In Q3 2013, Naked Juice debuted a new juice product, Tomato Kick. Tomato Kick and its predecessor, Berry Veggie, became the inaugural juices in Naked’s newest line of vegetable-based drinks – a departure from the brand’s typical fruit-based beverages. This product addition came at a time of the veggie juice craze: cleanses and self-juicers were becoming ever more popular. Additionally in 2013, Naked Juice established an important charity partnership with Wholesome Wave, an organization that provides fresh produce to underserved urban communities. As part of that partnership, Naked Juice pledged to donate 150,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables to Wholesome Wave over the course of the year. With these two programs in mind, Naked Juice needed to introduce its new juice line while also supporting its charity partnership. Not only that, but the brand was under attack with accusations that their products weren’t as “all natural" as they claimed to be, which increased the need to emphasize the brand’s promise of fresh, natural, non-GMO ingredients. This brand promise is of the utmost importance to Naked Juice’s target audience – adults who lead a happy, healthy, and purposeful lifestyle. These people, fueled by the food they consume, are active, adventurous, and driven. These consumers are go-getters and are not willing to compromise on their values. We were briefed on these details, along with one key objective: “Connect users to the harvest" to emphasize all the vegetables in the new line of juices. Using that as inspiration, we spent some time thinking about how consumers formulate their connections and what a “harvest" actually means to Naked’s consumers. For 21st century users, the word “connection" is more a reflection of their digital lives than their physical lives. Additionally, to reinforce Naked Juice’s promise of natural ingredients, we found it important to connect users to a physical harvest of real vegetables. The focus on vegetables was an important tie to the new product line. With those insights, we sought to enable users to tend a physical vegetable harvest via their pre-existing digital behavior on Twitter. From the beginning, the idea was built around social behavior and the ability to let people interact with something real and tangible through an intangible digital channel. We chose to place The Power Garden in downtown Chicago near the popular Union Station metro stop in order capitalize on high commuter foot traffic in the area. The location was also lacking in greenery, making our garden oasis stand out even more. We built The Power Garden as a socially enabled OOH unit in order to capture Naked Juice’s core target audience. We know these people are always out and about, and wanted to surprise and delight them in the midst of their busy days. We also knew our garden would attract their attention as fans of nature and all-natural products. Chicago city slickers with secret green thumbs would be intrigued by our ability to grow vegetables in the middle of an urban sprawl. Lastly, we chose to integrate the OOH component with digital media so that the reach of The Power Garden would not be limited to those who were able to visit it onsite. Enabling users to care for the garden via Twitter meant anyone anywhere in the world could help out. Our Ustream page meant that people could even watch their engagement on Twitter help the garden grow from sprouts to bushy vegetables over time. For our execution, we wanted to reflect the fresh ingredients that Naked Juice uses in its products while also enabling users to have a hand in tending the garden, essentially allowing anyone to become their own gardener. Therefore, we created the first-ever social media powered-living vegetable garden, which grew the vegetables featured in the juice line and used a combination of environmental, motion, and touch sensors along with Twitter data to shape its dynamic, living personality. The Power Garden sensed when people passed by and literally called out to them for on-site engagement. When spectators touched the vegetables, each veggie had a unique voice that responded to touch. Whistling, giggling, and singing are just a few sounds heard at the garden. For those not onsite, the garden had its own Twitter handle, @ThePowerGarden, that responded in real-time to tweets. Any tweet that mentioned “water"-related keywords activated the garden’s sprinkler system. The garden also had its own UStream page where others could watch the sprinklers turn on as they tweeted. In support of Naked Juice’s charity partnership with Wholesome Wave, which provides fresh produce to underserved communities, all the vegetables grown in the Power Garden were donated to the Washburn Culinary Institute, a Wholesome Wave affiliate in Chicago, to close the campaign at a Harvest Day event with the culinary students. Ultimately, the Power Garden received an estimated 104,000 impressions every day just from visitors passing through the Plaza. Of those visitors, 1 out of every 4 stopped to the touch the garden each day resulting in a total of 1,329,831 touches to the garden over the course of the campaign. Online, the garden received over 3,000 Facebook interactions and 292 Twitter interactions. The sprinklers were activated 163 times. Additionally, the Ustream page was viewed by fans in 19 different countries and 41 states. Each unique Ustream viewer came back to watch the Power Garden again an average of 3.6 times. This repeat behavior shows how emotionally invested and engaged people became with the living garden. Not only that, but consumers’ opinions of the Naked Juice brand actually improved by 40% over the last year despite the lawsuit that threatened to damage Naked’s image of fresh, healthy ingredients. This execution was unique in that our OOH media component was inherently tied to digital media – the garden could not have survived with Twitter engagement from users. This interaction between media channels created a unique experience for users that influenced both their digital and physical worlds in
