The Campaign

Japan’s largest marathon race is TOKYO MARATHON 2014 with over 36,000 runners. Dole sponsored this race, but wanted to be remembered as not just a plain fruit. Dole’s banana is extra sweet, delicious and most importantly the best nutritious energy supply for all marathoners. Dole wanted to brand the banana, the ultimate of all bananas. So we create an ultimate banana that could be used as PR and that no one will forget. BANANA TROPHY The participants first try a “BANANA TROPHY” lottery through facebook, limited to Tokyo marathoners only. If they win, all they had to do was run the race, without any smartphone or apps to download. When the runner crosses the finish line, the TOKYO MARATHON official RFID on the marathoners shoe will be detected by a special “BANANA TROPHY” web system. Which automatically sends a “JUST FINISHED TOKYO MARATHON 2014!” post onto the runners’ facebook. The runners’ friends can congratulate their finish and all the feedback is collected through the web, which automatically transforms into the “BANANA TROPHY” in real-time at the finish line. The trophy had the marathoners’ name, finish time and cheers from facebook friends printed directly onto the Dole banana, by linking the web to a specially constructed printer using edible ink. Only 200 lucky runners won the “BANANA TROPHY” but the idea was to make PR valuable news that could be spread to even the non-runners as well.

The Brief

The goal was to create PR valuable news using the Dole banana and the whole experience to getting it. To directly print a personal message with the participants’ name and information on a banana was news by itself. To do it in real-time on the spot was even bigger news, especially for a marathoner who had just finished a 42.195km run exhausted. The banana is a commodity fruit, so creating a special experience around the Dole banana was necessary, and that is what we aimed for.

Results

Buzz like “The banana too precious to eat!” swept the web and was shared 720,000 times. The “BANANA TROPHY” was broadcasted even on the national news. Media cost was zero, but the total coverage was worth over 1,100,000 USD. The news reached more than 28,000,000 people grasping the hearts of all runners and more. A national market survey showed that, 95.3% changed their impression of Dole to extremely good 83.5% strongly considered buying “Dole’s banana” Sales went up 115% the next month onwards, and Dole became the most unforgettable banana not only to the runners, but to the whole nation. All of the runners couldn’t and didn’t want to eat the “BANANA TROPHY” because it was too precious and memorable.

Execution

When the runner crossed the finish line, the official RFID on the marathoners shoe triggered and automatically sent a “JUST FINISHED TOKYO MARATHON 2014!” post onto the runners’ facebook. The runners’ friends congratulated their finish and the feedback was collected through the web, which automatically transformed into the “BANANA TROPHY” in real-time. The trophy had the marathoners’ name, finish time and cheers from facebook printed directly onto the Dole banana, by linking the web to a specially constructed printer. The campaign ran according to plan with no problems along the way, except for the massive typhoon that hit the Philippine Islands on Nov. 4th 2013. All of the Dole bananas are imported from the Philippines, and due to this natural disaster, there was of shortage of bananas.

The Situation

Japan’s largest marathon race is TOKYO MARATHON 2014 with over 36,000 runners. Dole sponsored this race, but wanted to be remembered as not just a plain fruit. Dole’s banana is extra sweet, delicious and most importantly the best nutritious energy supply for all marathoners. Dole wanted to brand the banana, the ultimate of all bananas.

The Strategy

The strategy was to grasp the hearts of the runners when they received a Dole banana. In order to do so, we needed to create an ultimate Dole banana no one will forget. BANANA TROPHY A memorable trophy made from a Dole banana, that the runner would be sure to love and share onto their SNS. Also a trophy so golden and special that the web and mass media could not ignore.