The Julia Tree: Helping Grow Jobs, Justice, and Peace in Africa
When Mpho Tutu Van Furth approached our lead website developer, Juan, to design a digital campaign for the launch of The Julia Tree Challenge, a joint venture between The Tutu Teach Foundation and Hopes Initiatives International, he embraced the challenge with open arms.
The Julia Tree Challenge is an initiative to plant one million “Julia Trees” along Africa’s Great Green Wall — a designated area spanning the width of Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia, which is being transformed into arable land — while advocating and fighting for women’s rights, peace, and racial justice.
The overall goal of the initiative is very straightforward: to create awareness; connect with users via social media; and to increase web traffic to drive sales of “Julia Trees.”
The bottom line, however, is that The Julia Tree Challenge is about more than just the trees. The Julia Tree Challenge is a global movement helping to grow justice, jobs, and a greener future for Africa and the world.
As with many of our projects at SALVé, we firmly believe that no two campaigns are ever the same, and the work we did for The Julia Tree was no exception to this. SALVé’s approach centered around carefully selected storytelling techniques which best fit the needs of The Julia Tree based on their initial consultation with Juan and further research into the initiative.
The end result focused on a new website for The Julia Tree that was designed to be practical, elegant, and impactful, which could also be used to showcase The Julia Tree’s existing work.
“The professionalism and creativity of Juan Cadile and his team are a joy to work with.” — Don Mullan, Author, Filmmaker, Concept Developer & CEO, Hopes Initiatives International
Alongside their existing work, our designers and artists joined forces to turn ideas into reality, creating a campaign video for The Julia Tree aimed to inspire viewers, which would go on to be featured prominently on the brand-new website.
Integrated digital marketing was the final piece to The Julia Tree puzzle, which was utilized to increase awareness and ultimately drive engagement.
“Our goal was to create a website experience that was functional yet impactful, and our designers hit it out of the park.” — Juan Cadile, lead designer for The Julia Tree.
The Julia Tree Challenge gained a lot of traction following the launch of the initiative. Thanks to the powerful brand story of The Julia Tree, combined with beautiful imagery, and the inclusion of the updated website, the project was a resounding success.
The new website saw thousands of visitors and social channels received thousands more interactions. The initiative was eventually picked up by CNN having gained momentum from the increased traffic, and was featured on First Move with Julia Chatterley.
Notable patrons, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and his daughter, Mpho Tutu Van Furth, were the final indicator of the website’s success, praising the final product and the work of the SALVé team.
“The finished product was absolutely beautiful.” — Mpho Tutu Van Furth, Executive Director & Co-Founder Tutu Teach
SALVé aims to get the absolute best product for your brand, so don’t hesitate to schedule a discovery call here with one of our developers to find out how we can maximize your online presence.
