Advertiser: GENERAL MILLS
Agency: McCANN ERICKSON
Category: Copywriting
Advertising campaign: NATURE VALLEY TRAIL VIEW 2.0
Producer: Adam Baskin (Inthemo)
Lead Cameraman: Brandon Mcclain (Inthemo)
Editor: Nathan Thompson (Craft New York)
Creative Director: Jason Schmall (McCann New York)
Executive Creative Director And Photographer: Jens Karlsson (Your Majesty)
Executive Creative Director: Leslie Sims (McCann New York)
Chairman: Linus Karlsson (McCann Worldgroup)
Chief Creative Officers: Tom Murphy (McCann New York)
Group Creative Director: Mat Bisher (McCann New York)
Exec Integrated Producer: Catherine Eve Patterson (McCann New York)
Executive Producer: Heather Reddig (Your Majesty)
Digitech/Cameraman: James Demuth (Inthemo)
Developer: Raed Atoui (Your Majesty)
Copywriter: Sarah Lloyd (McCann New York)
Chief Production Officer: Brian Dilorenzo (McCann New York)
Creative Principle/Field Producer: Bryan Roberts (Traction)
Sr. Integrated Producer: Geoffrey Guinta (McCann New York)
Preservation Lead/Writer: Greg Jackson
Design Director: Riley Milhem (Your Majesty)
Chief Creative Officers: Sean Bryan (McCann New York)
Implementation
Our teams hiked for over three months, covering 400+ miles of trails in four of the most popular parks: Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Great Smoky Mountains and Sequoia national park. 8.8 terabytes of footage, over 12 million image files, and more than 172,000 GPS points were collected, and transformed into a never-before-seen interactive experience and preservation platform.The site was built on a customized version of the Google Maps API, creating a user experience that is equal parts map utility, educational tool and eye candy. To enhance the appeal to our target, we partnered with a cadre of outdoors-focused media outlets, including National Geographic and Backpacker. To bring in a broader audience, we began a vigorous public relations effort highlighted by features in the New York Times and Conde Nast Traveler, among others. And using social outlets to engage the Trail View community has sustained momentum as the site evolves.
Effectiveness
The initial launch on March 7th 2012 created a positive media buzz unlike anything Nature Valley had ever seen. Without a single dollar of paid media, Trail View generated over 30 million earned media impressions within the first week. Within two weeks the site had generated more than 100,000 unique visits, and 300,000 page views. To date, the goal was to increase the percentage of ratio of traffic to page visits by at least 25%; comparing the ratio for the six months of reporting pre-launch (191.9%) to the six months post-launch (402.4%), we came close (210.5%) to eclipsing the goal by a magnitude of ten (Facebook Insights). The platform also was featured in Google's Creative Sandbox, featured at IDEO's lecture series, has won 2 Gold Cannes Lions, every other major advertising award, been written about in The New York Times, FastCompany, NBC News, Popular Mechanics, and endless others.
Campaign Description
When Nature Valley asked us to tackle the challenge of national park preservation on a larger scale, we created Trail View – a first-of-it’s-kind street view experience on hiking trails in the U.S. national parks. The goal for Trail View 2.0 was to expand the digital preservation effort and incorporate all Nature Valley preservation efforts. Our teams have hiked over 400 miles of trails across the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, The Great Smoky Mountains, and Sequoia National Park. 8.8 terabytes of footage, over 12 million image files, and more than 172,000 GPS points were collected and transformed into an interactive experience and digital preservation program. While hiking Sequoia, the team participated in two meadow restoration projects, and the Trail View 2.0 site is now home to an interactive hub for all Nature Valley preservation activity. The new section displays national preservation needs, and what the brand is doing to help.