People say that talking to your plants helps them grow. To test this theory, Heinz, the massive ketchup company and benefactor to John Kerry's chin, set up two tomato plants in two rooms in the UK. In one room sits a computer, a speaker and a microphone. In the other, the plant is alone...impossibly alone in this big world.
The experiment works simply: Anyone can visit TalkToThePlant.com and type in a message to be read by a computer program out loud to the first plant. The microphone in the room captures what you and others type and plays it back to you. The audience is encouraged to type positive messages. The other plant gets no audio love from the net.
It's pretty interesting to listen to what people say to the plant. One of the first things I typed in was "grow, baby, grow." I heard this phrase about 40 more times in the course of half an hour. Later, I started up a halting conversation with a man from Durham, North Carolina who believes that Heinz stole his recipe for ketchup. As a revenge, he's manufacturing his own green tomato ketchup. In case you're curious and want to try it, the stuff is "great on pizza." Who knew?
So far, the experiment is inconclusive, with the beloved plant growing to a height of 35 cm while the ignored plant has grown to 36 cm. The larger experiment—for our post-advertising purposes, that is—is whether this project helps Heinz's brand image. Heinz is the Coca-Cola of ketchups, except Hunt's, the also-ran, is no Pepsi. Hunt's is more like Boylan's soda: a crappy, independent brand in comparison. So, like the Coca-Colas of the world (Adobe, Microsoft, Nike), Heinz's advertising is and should be about ubiquity—being the gold standard and everywhere in the market. And that's what this is about. This is an interesting project with no call to action, no retention program; essentially, it's something fun for the kids and the fans. It has a very good chance of enhancing the company's brand image marginally, but it also has a slight chance (through PR, word of mouth and viral efforts) of being a huge homerun for Heinz. (Additionally, you can follow the action here on the "behind the scenes" blog.")
I give agency Daddy big-time kudos for putting this together. Since the experiment started on November 12, almost 5,000 messages have been left for a future Heinz tomato. Brands want their customers to talk to them; turns out, all you need to do is set up a mic and a speaker (and a whole mess of fancy-shmancy shit in this case). (Via)