As leaders in quality fresh and packaged fruit, Dole Sunshine Company (DSC) wants to help alleviate child hunger experienced across the US. The challenge was how to use the latest cultural phenomenon to get people talking and create real change.

With that, the solution was to take something relevant and buzzworthy and digital and find a new way to reframe and ground the conversation in real-world issues that are core to DSC. The key considerations taken into account were being authentic to the brand and also increasing the brand’s digital presence. With that, it was crucial in the campaign ideation that the creative was authentic to the purpose, while reaching a new audience of digital natives.

With a combined passion to make a difference, we joined forces with artist David Datuna, also known as “The Hungry Artist” after his viral banana-eating moment at Art Basel Miami. Together, we created fruit-inspired digital artwork as NFTs - also known as Non-Fungible Tokens - a new frontier in blockchain technology, taking the world by storm.

Titled #BiteOutOfHunger, the five-part NFT art collection focused on the intrinsic connection between nutrition and food security, representing people coming together to take a bite out of hunger. The final piece featured a physical artwork that brought the first four pieces together and embedded a nod to Datuna's banana-eating moment. Proceeds from the NFT sales auction were donated to fund child hunger-focused programming for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, including Dole's Sunshine for All Cities™ program.

The overarching goal for PR was to raise awareness of and funds for much needed efforts to close the child hunger crisis. By utilising the cutting-edge technology and Datuna’s art, strategic storytelling was crafted around the vulnerabilities of the planet, people, quest for solutions, and how the simple action of taking a bite can make a difference.

Through compelling content, engaging spokespeople, strategic media targeting and exclusive media moments, the story was told across three phases: the announcement of the campaign driving awareness and buzz, the news of the auction to generate interest and engagement for potential buyers, and post auction to build equity, for Dole communicate the funds raised in support of the Dole Promise.

The key pillars were art, lifestyle, tech, crypto, social good and food. Assets consisted of a global press release, multimedia news release housing artwork, backgrounders, and video assets showcasing the NFT artwork.

To announce the campaign, an exclusive article was secured with Forbes, followed by additional coverage in Quartz, Benzinga, AdAge and TechRepublic, among others. These were positioning pieces leveraging spokespeople at Dole DSC and artist David Datuna to tell the story around the campaign and its purpose.

To drum up excitement around the auction, the popular digital platform Clubhouse was leveraged to host a talk with David Datuna, Dole and Rarible, engaging tech-first millennials on the platform. This led to crypto outlets taking interest in the campaign with coverage in NFT specific outlets such as Crypto News and BeInCrypto.

Journalists from key outlets were also hosted live at the Superchief Gallery in New York, the world's first physical exhibition space dedicated solely to NFT artwork where the final piece in the series was on display. This served as a key opportunity for the media to preview the artwork and interview Datuna.

Earned media efforts garnered 88 earned placements, reaching a potential audience of 479.9M with an ad equivalency value of $7.3 million.

The NFTs were sold on NFT marketplace Rarible.com and were well-received with over 42 million social impressions and over two million engagements on Twitter and over seven million on Reddit. It also generated a discussion by 3,500 crypto enthusiasts within minutes on Clubhouse, and was reported on by major news outlets.

DSC also held a giveaway on Twitter for fans to stand a chance to win a NFT and debuted at the Decentraland gallery - a user-owned, Ethereum-based metaverse – where people could bid for their favorite artworks while at the gallery.

DSC raised a total of 25.8 ether, (worth over SG$151,400), with the highest bid reaching 10.8 ether (worth over SG$63,300). [Ether is the native cryptocurrency of blockchain platform Ethereum.]