In approaching our work with Chiquita, our goal was to help rejuvenate the brand, so we returned to the core elements that made them beloved across the US. We leveraged their classic visual assets—the blue sticker, graphic photography, Chiquita yellow, and playful typography—and paired them with a confident and humorous brand voice. Then we launched it all under the banner of a new brand line: We Are Bananas.
Late summer is the most competitive time for fruit sales, so Chiquita needed a campaign that would keep its brand top of mind for North American fruit and produce buyers. After much research, we realized a total solar eclipse would cross the entire United States, coast-to-coast, for the first time in nearly 100 years. And for two glorious moments before and after the total eclipse, the burning ball of gas in the center of our solar system would turn into a giant banana.
With this brilliantly obvious discovery, we created a fully integrated campaign, the Banana Sun Cometh. In tongue-in-cheek fashion, we convinced the world that Chiquita was turning the sun into a banana for this once-in-a-lifetime event.
Our efforts started two weeks before the eclipse with online teaser videos that evolved into posters for science influencers. The following week we made banana ties for weathermen. We ran a full-page ad in the Sunday edition of the New York Times that ran alongside an article about the eclipse. We ran our Banana Sun commercial, warning people not to stare at the sun on science programming, and we even composed a theremin music video for optimal Banana un viewing. We also dropped a 50-foot glowing banana in the middle of downtown New York City.
As the Banana Sun came into view, we hosted a live, hour-long comedy show in partnership with Funny or Die on Facebook Live. Street teams handed out Chiquita banana sunglasses to New Yorkers who had procrastinated in finding their own eclipse-safe eyewear. A Banana Sun Snapchat filter was geofenced in the path of totality across the country, making it available to those seeing the full eclipse.
In the most viewed event of 2017, nobody could take their eyes off of the Chiquita banana sun.