“The Giving Tree” was a massive, magical installation that invited people to plant a digital seed. Each seed planted:

• Grew into a fantastical tree; each seed created a different tree.

• Donated 1 case of yogurt (or 12 cups) to the No Kid Hungry, a charity fighting child hunger.

TECHNICAL EXECUTION

We engineered 2 systems: The “tree trunk” system and a “canopy” system. Both of were written in C++ using the Cinder creative-coding toolkit.

The “trunk” system interfaced with 12 DMX lighting fixtures, push-button sensors, and a single Arduino. When a dome was pressed, it lit up and shot a beam of light up the trunk.

The“canopy” system received an OSC event triggering an explosion of fruit on LED screens. This software procedurally rendered tree limbs, leaves, light, fruit, and birds—never rendering the same scene twice.

MEDIA EXECUTION

We bought geo-targeted ads along the subway lines to and streets around Grand Central to grow installation visits.

PR EXECUTION

We recruited celebrities to appear at the installation so lifestyle publications would pick up the story and amplify our message of “One for All.”

In the 12 hours the installation was active, we surpassed our objectives:

OBJECTIVE: Create a high engagement event

• 21,812 total interactions with the installation; equates to ~30 interactions per minute

• 261,744 yogurt cups donated to No Kid Hungry

OBJECTIVE: Generate 1.9B earned impressions for the activation

• 4.1B earned impressions

• 1,000 placements (social and coverage)

OBJECTIVE: Drive 50k “free yogurt” coupon downloads at chobani.com

• 91k “free yogurt” coupons printed on chobani.com; Averaging 6k print per hour