eos Magazine: Talking Tree

Working on the idea that everybody has an opinion on climate change - but what about the opinion of Nature? Happiness Brussels, the award-winning international communications agency, decided to give an interesting and intelligent voice to one tree in Brussels and let the whole world know what it has to say. The tree, living in Bois de la Cambre, one of the finest public parks in the heart of Brussels, has been “brought to life” to become the communications centre of a campaign for leading popular science magazine EOS.

The Talking Tree will share its feelings and sensory perceptions of the state of its environment through words, sound and vision in real time, 24/7 across several online platforms including Twitter, Facebook, SoundCloud, YouTube and Flickr. The aim is to engage people in a debate on urgent environmental issues including climate change and invite them to take action to reduce their ecological footprint.

To drive the conversation the Talking Tree will benefit from a whole range of gadgets on which to draw for information; a CO2 meter, pH meter, a small wind turbine, webcam, DB-meter, accelerometer, infrared camera and a thermometer. The information will be processed by bespoke software and converted into phrases expressing the tree’s feelings and experiences based on the environmental conditions such as: “I’m feeling really dizzy today, there are too many cars going by”, “The air is getting a bit dirty. Do me a favour, take your bike” and “Time to do my job and convert some C02 into O2”. The tree will also post sound bites, photos and videos. All the action is assimilated on the Tree’s website and control room at www.talking-tree.com

The viral strategy, social media outreach and the activated broader environments, are all aimed at opinion leaders to influence their followers to sign up to the Talking Tree on Twitter. From gadget lovers to tree-huggers, there will be something of interest for everyone. This will be supported by print ads in magazines and newspapers and email marketing.

A 30 second and 90 second video of the Talking Tree will be seeded online across technology, gadget, design, ecology and entertainment websites and blogs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgBPxmn-dG0

The campaign will culminate with an EOS “Low Impact Month” in November 2010 designed to encourage additional effort in reducing personal environmental footprints. Users can measure their carbon footprint using ECOLife, a footprint calculator and sign up to receive a roadmap on how to shrink their footprint by adapting their food, mobility, heating, electricity, waste and water consumption.

Gregory Titeca, creative director and head of R&D at Happiness Brussels, said: “Talking Tree has its roots in a powerful idea about highlighting a major environmental challenge in a unique way. The successful combination of a myriad of technologies and communications channels to make this happen is the product of the idea – not the other way round, and this is something we are extremely passionate about. The technology and channels allow the Tree to start and continue its discussions not only in the target markets, but also with people from around the world. Thanks to the Talking Tree, nature has now been given an intelligent voice.”

Koen De Buck, commercial director at EOS Magazine, said: “We are hugely excited about the impetus that Talking Tree will have both on generating interest in EOS but more importantly on a matter of significance that concerns us all. Nature is suffering from pollution in our cities and by letting everyone know exactly how the Tree is feeling about the world around it today, it will get people thinking about Nature’s viewpoint on how we are treating the world we share.”

“We wanted to move away from the traditional monologue advertising and create something that would enable us to add value and engage our readers on a common journey to reduce our footprints through a platform they are familiar with, like and trust.”