The Campaign

Allowing banana, a common food, to evolve into something more personal and special. Let us give banana a new value, and transform banana from something “to eat” into something “to communicate one’s feelings with”. This way, we can incite consumers to feel empathy to Dole brand and to initiate an action to buy Dole banana. That is why we developed “BANAPEN”, Japan’s first pen dedicated to writing on bananas, and designed a “Banana Message” campaign, to allow people to send messages to each other, directly written on bananas with BANAPEN.

Creative Execution

By developing a ground-breaking BANAPEN that allows you to write on bananas, we transformed banana into a communication device, raised interest and changed behavior of target audience. Collaborating with a stationery manufacturer, Dole developed a pen with a completely new concept. Using “Banana vending machine” located in Shibuya, Tokyo, we sold Dole banana with BANAPEN in “limited time/quantity”. Hundreds of people queued, and many discussed the rare and unique BANAPEN on Twitter and Facebook. Their enthusiasm invited coverage by domestic and overseas media. Prior to TOKYO MARATHON, we carried out Dole banana/BANAPEN sampling in a popular running area and organized a Banana Message trial event, where runners wrote their wish and supporting messages on bananas and exchanged them The communication was originally planned for TOKYO MARATHON runners, family and friends to exchange supporting messages. However its appeal reached much broader public, many of them posting elaborate Banana Messages on SNS.

Results

Business impact/Sales When sales of Dole banana and BANAPEN package started, the dedicated vending machine sold out for over a month. It was so popular that the three-times-a-week restocking was increased to daily, and tickets were distributed at 7:00AM to queueing customers. Sales from the vending machine shot up to 1020% year-on-year. Change in behaviour Banana Message attracted strong empathy and became an extremely hot topic, moving many consumers to buy Dole bananas. A new custom of using bananas to communicate feelings has been created. Images of Banana Message and BANAPEN were actively posted on Twitter and other Social Media, counting 11,000 tweets. Furthermore, many runners experienced the Banana Message at a running station leading up to TOKYO MARATHON, resulting in many of the 35,000 participating runners seen exchanging messages written on bananas.

We developed “BANAPEN”, Japan’s first special-purpose pen to write letters or draw pictures directly on the banana skin. With this invention, banana has evolved from a simple food to a communication device that can convey personal messages. The joy of hand-writing a message on bananas, which is called “Banana Message”, instantly captured the imagination of Japanese consumers and created tremendous excitement. With families and friends enjoying exchange of messages, “Banana Message” has become a new communication habit in Japan.

By introducing a new solution in the form of BANAPEN, we transformed banana into a communication device, raised interest and changed behaviour of target audience. Data gathering: People today are engaged in speedy digital communication such as Social Media and e-mail, but we took notice of their hidden insight; they also wish to send a heartfelt message in an old-fashioned way through hand-written letters or notes. Target audience: All runners who train to run the TOKYO MARATHON, the biggest marathon event in Japan, and their family and friends. Approach: We designed a communication scheme that allows supporters to send a message to participating runners, our main target, to help them complete the race or achieve their best. But the scheme expanded beyond our original target and started to be used in more ordinary communication unrelated to runners, and many images of elaborate Banana Messages have been posted on Social Media.