Why is this work relevant for Direct?

Since 2011, Hanwha, a world-leading solar solution provider, has created a total of seven forests by only using solar energy in China, South Korea, and other parts of the world as a Corporate-Social-Responsibility(CSR) program. However, campaign awareness remained low and there was also a lack of understanding of the difference between Hanwha's ultimate eco-friendly forestation way and other organizations’ way. Even in the COVID-19 situation, to enable more people to directly experience the difference of Hanwha’s forest and how the solar solution provides public benefit especially in terms of environment and sustainability, we planned the direct campaign with a game.

Background

Hanwha has been operating the solar solution business since 2010 and has occupied the No.1 market share in the United States, UK, Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Nevertheless, because of the fact that the solar solution business is B2B, the Hanwha brand and brand activities are not well-known to the public as a solar solution provider. Under the brand philosophy “Sustainable future”, Hanwha has planted forests in a very special way. Hanwha grows many young trees by auto irrigation and temperature control system through electricity created from its solar solution system, unlike others who use electricity from fossil fuels. Therefore, the carbon emission in the entire process of Hanwha's forestation is zero. Due to COVID-19, most tree-planting campaigns initiated by NGOs got canceled. However, instead of canceling the campaign, we decided to execute a non-contact forestation campaign so that more people participate directly and safely amid the pandemic.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

To allow people to engage in tree planting while practicing social distancing, we decided to implement the whole process of tree planting outdoor to mobile devices and release the campaign digitally. Also, Hanwha's Forest has a distinctive characteristic that it does not emit carbon at all because it grows young trees only with solar energy. As we need to convey this important characteristic in more acceptable way, we decided to apply the concept of gamification. To enable easy, enjoyable, and persistent participation in the campaign, we developed a mobile game app: ‘Solar Forest’. This digital tree-planting game utilizes a light sensor to grow virtual trees with natural light shined on the device and allow fully grown trees to be donated to the real forest.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

There are three key strategic ideas for this game. First, by planting the virtual trees powered by sunlight shined through windows and balconies, people can directly participate in the campaign while still preventing the local society’s spread of infections. Also, existing offline tree-planting campaigns had limitations in the number of participants but this game allows numerous people from all ages wherever they are to engage and contribute. Second, regarding the audience, our goal was conveying the positive aspects of Hanwha’s forestation campaign to more people beyond the existing Hanwha-brand advocates and environmentally-high-involvement-groups. Therefore, we have targeted not only Hanwha-brand-interest groups and environment-interest groups, but also game-high-involvement-groups and plant-interest groups. Third, by planting virtual trees utilizing sunlight, instead of delivering the information unilaterally, the ‘Solar Forest’ game invites players to personally engage in the content, effectively conveying the Hanwha brand-philosophy and brand activism which response to the climate-crisis by eco-friendly forestation.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Even though the game was developed for the Hanwha brand experience, the game itself must be entertaining for countless people to participate. So we designated the atmosphere of this game to provide a relaxing experience and created the interface by carefully curating the game assets like color, tone, design, background music with forest ASMR so that users can feel soothed. The Solar Forest app was released on World Environment Day(5th June) 2020. From the launch date to the present, it is steadily attracting participants. We promoted the app with Facebook, Instagram and YouTube bumper ads. Also, the ‘Solar Forest’ app has won several game awards and app awards. The unique play of utilizing sunlight became viral in social media, creating viral-loops that inspire new downloads. While people couldn't go out and plant trees due to the pandemic, the Solar Forest has become a new opportunity to make up for it.

List the results (30% of vote)

1. Compared to last year, campaign participants increased by 821% 2. Ranked #1 Free Game of App Store 3. Top24 at Made with Unity Award 2020 4. Won at iEco Awards 2020 5. 99% positive sentiments of the campaign across social 6. Used as environmental education material for students 7. The number of trees donated in the game continues to increase actively at this moment (About 10,000 virtual trees were donated as of 23rd December 2020). Hanwha plans to reflect the number of donated virtual trees to the size of the actual forest, they will plant in March 2021. 8. Introduced at the Sustainable-Development-Goals FORUM 2020 and Unity-for-Humanity Summit 2020 as a best practice. 9. The game served as an opportunity to rekindle the public’s awareness of environmental problems overshadowed by the pandemic. 10. The game enhanced Hanwha’s brand activism as the world-leading solar solution provider responding to the climate-change.