Title	READ A TREE
Brand	ELEFANT.RO
Product/Service	ONLINE BOOK SELLER
Category	A09. Original Branded Digital or Social media
Entrant Company	GEOMETRY GLOBAL Bucharest, ROMANIA
Contributing Company	GEOMETRY GLOBAL Bucharest, ROMANIA

Name	Company	Position
Mihai Fetcu	Geometry Global Romania	Creative Director
Stefan Vasilachi	Geometry Global Romania	Head Of Art
Matei Vasiliu	Geometry Global Romania	Head Of Digital Creative
Rares Dumitrel	Geometry Global Romania	Senior Copywriter
Mihaela Bourceanu	Geometry Global Romania	Client Service Director
Patricia Arbanas	Geometry Global Romania	Account Director
Mina Ionescu	Geometry Global Romania	Junior Digital Account Manager
Madalina Gogu	Geometry Global Romania	Account Executive
Ionut Iacobache	Geometry Global Romania	Production Manager
Dorina Sandu	Geometry Global Romania	Dtp
Mihaela Zaharia	Geometry Global Romania	Pr Specialist
Adrian Dinu	Elefant.ro	Executive Director
Alen Todorov	Elefant.ro	Headof Marketing

The Campaign

15 million trees are being cut every year in Romania. Greenpeace and several national NGOs started campaigning against abusive deforestation. This is one of the hot topics in Romania. In May 2015 was scheduled the biggest manifestation yet against abusive tree cutting. Elefant.ro is the oldest online book store in Romania and one of the first promoters of e-books. The deforestation context presented itself as an opportunity for Elefant to claim its role as the main promoter of digital books on the Romanian market while supporting the cause. Tracing the root cause, the obvious fact was that trees are cut down to serve a purpose, more than a third of them being destroyed to make paper. To save the remaining trees, they had to fulfil a purpose without being cut down. But what if a tree could give you a book and still be alive? The simple, but clever way to do this was to develop an app. Using image recognition algorithms, the Read a Tree app is able to detect if a tree appears in the photo or not. It could be any of the 100,000 species in the world. If a tree is detected, the app would give a free e-book. All this without QR codes or fancy markers. Right after the scan, the tree picture could be shared on Facebook, compelling others to do the same. Read a Tree was a campaign led by the trees. For one week, trees in parks and on the streets had a powerful statement to make. Instead of cutting them to get books, people should scan them! It was the first time the oldest living organisms were used to start a digital revolution. Using the app would promote the fight against deforestation, but also endorse Elefant’s brand point of view.

In the first week, the app was downloaded over 5,000 times. During the first month, 200 books were downloaded each day. 50,000 trees were scanned and counting. Read a Tree quickly became a trending app on Play Store and App Store, as more and more people were curious to see if it really worked. Online and media coverage soon followed, generating earned media to the value of 1.6 million EUR. With a single, clever app, Elefant secured its leadership in the e-book market while promoting the fight against deforestation.

In just 7 days, if someone saw a picture of a tree on social media he thought of Elefant.ro. And it all had to do with an app promoted by the trees themselves. During one week at the beginning of April 2015, trees were clothed in a message that asked people not to cut them, but instead to scan them using the app and receive a free e-book in return. No QR codes or fancy markers needed. The app was launched during a time when deforestation had become a national issue in Romania. Soon after, Read a Tree became a medium of its own. On social media, every shared scan of a tree triggered another download of the app, promoting itself without any paid media. The promise that every tree could give a book generated an average of 200 downloads per day during the first month.