Situation:

Poor diets kill more people globally than tobacco and high blood pressure. To help fight this issue, and promote a healthier diet, ‘Dole Sunshine Company’, the largest fruit provider in the world, committed to getting good nutrition to all who need it, wanted to get the world talking about the importance of fruit.

Objectives:

Get people who are aware of The Pope and The Bible to eat more healthy fruit

By using cheeky humour to raise awareness and debate about the way The Bible portrays it as sinful.

KPIs:

While we didn’t expect The Pope to respond, or change The Bible – we wanted to create media impact, thus getting our message about fruit to the people of the world.

On International Fruit Day 2022, we wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to Pope Francis, to rectify the biggest PR disaster in the history of fruit: Original Sin. Published in the only newspaper he reads, La Repubblica, the letter sought to redeem the reputation of the ‘forbidden fruit’. We didn’t ask for a lot. Just a tiny change to the Bible, replacing the word “fruit” for any other unhealthy snack. Tapping into the world’s biggest influencer, without really expecting him to lift a finger. Appearing in only one Italian newspaper on one day, and then shared on social, this campaign depended on being audacious enough to be shared organically in earned media, sparking global dialogue around the importance of fruit. Of course, we didn’t really expect the Pope to change the Bible, but we hoped the boldness of the letter would get attention beyond the single publication, which, thank God, it did.

Appearing in only one Italian newspaper on one day, and then shared on social, this campaign depended on being audacious enough to be picked up and shared organically in earned media. Of course, we didn’t really expect the Pope to change the Bible, but we hoped the boldness of sending him our tongue-in-cheek letter would spark attention beyond the publication itself, which, thank God, it did, achieving approximately $2.2M in earned media in just a few days, and appearing over 784 outlets, from Design Taxi to Bloomberg.

On International Fruit Day 2022, we wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to His Holiness, Pope Francis, to rectify the biggest PR disaster in the history of fruit: the calamity of Original Sin. Published in the only newspaper he reads, La Repubblica, the letter sought to redeem the reputation of the ‘forbidden fruit’. We didn’t ask for a lot. Just a tiny change to the Bible, replacing the word “fruit” for any other unhealthy snack, like doughnuts. Tapping into the world’s biggest influencer, without really expecting him to lift a finger. Today, more than ever, no fruit should be forbidden. The letter – a humorous and unprecedented plea to the Pontiff – is designed to spark global dialogue around the importance of fruit for a nutritious diet and focus on fruit’s benefits and overall global accessibility. It was also shared via owned and earned media; digital, social and PR.

Despite being a single execution in a relatively unknown newspaper on one day, we achieved over 55m media impressions in just a few days. It appeared in over 784 outlets, from Design Taxi to Bloomberg, achieving approximately $2.2M in earned media. We reached an estimated audience of around 248M, sparking heated debate around the globe about the virtue of fruit.