Corporate and consumer

Setting Tree Top apart in the apple field

For Tree Top

WHAT WE DID

Creative strategy
Advertising design & development
Media placement & purchase
Multimedia, video & radio production
Public Relations
Social media strategy & community management

The challenge

For nearly 60 years, Tree Top products had been consistently stocked on grocery shelves, recognizable and familiar to parents and children. The brand maintained relatively steady awareness for many years without major marketing initiatives.

However, as more and more brands entered its marketplace, it was time for Tree Top to invest in an awareness campaign. As a co-op of grower-owners, Tree Top knew it was not like the other apple-product producers. It needed to set itself apart in consumers’ minds, too.

To help, DH teamed up with French | West | Vaughan, a partner agency in the IPREX network, which connects clients and agencies around the globe.

The strategy

To learn more about what set Tree Top apart from other brands, we interviewed employees and growers about their experiences, viewpoints and products. We found a lot to work with. Operating in the heart of Washington’s apple country in Selah, Washington, Tree Top employees and growers remain committed to their small-town roots and rural values. They put hard work and care into their fruit and products.

Keeping in mind what we knew about what its customers — often parents with young children — valued, we also noted:

Tree Top is physically close to the orchards where farmers grow the fruit in its products, so it’s a short trip from farm to bottle (or to jar or to pouch). Tree Top products are made entirely from apples grown near Tree Top headquarters and plants.
As a co-op, Tree Top is owned by the growers who raise and harvest the fruit in its products. They are invested in quality throughout the growing, harvesting, production and distribution process.
Tree Top juice is uncomplicated. Its juice is made of apples, water and vitamin C. It’s pure-pressed products contain apples and nothing more.
In other words: Tree Top makes simple, wholesome products. And its growers raise and care for their apples with care and dedication.

This video spot weaves together orchard scenes and family-life scenes, relating the work done by Tree Top growers to the work that parents do every day. The spot reassures consumers that Tree Top is here to help.

What we did

DH and French | West | Vaughan developed a campaign to illustrate the parallels between parents’ love and devotion to their families to Tree Trop growers’ dedication and hard work in their orchards. Like parents with kids, growers show up every day to care for their trees and fruit.

The campaign, “Together, We Grow Better,” draws direct links between the daily lives of growers and parents, communicating Tree Top’s good-natured intentions and aligning them, often virtually shot-for-shot, with those of parents. The “grower shots” also serve to demonstrate the qualities that distinguish Tree Top from its competitors. We filmed harvest as it happened, highlighting the growers and the care they gave to the fruit. The voiceover in comes from a grower’s point of view, lending authenticity and authority — and mirroring Tree Top’s reserved, quiet-but-confident position in the industry.

It all adds up to a campaign that shows parents: Tree Top invests the same love and care into its products that mothers and fathers invest in their families.

“We grow better”

radio spot

Campaign assets included social media posts and radio spot. We created imagery that emphasized care and connection.

Results

The campaign achieved more than 11 million paid media impressions across platforms including Hulu and Facebook, along with video pre-roll (before online videos) and as OTT (on streaming programming).