Trees by Label

Most advertisers lure young customers to their products with offers of model racing cars or "surprise" toys. Hunt-Wesson Foods has a different ploy: trees. In the wake of a wave of forest fires that swept the Pacific Northwest, last December the California food-processing company offered to plant a seedling tree in the fire-ravaged forests in the name of anyone who sent in a label or code number from a can of its Big John's Beans 'n Fixin's. More than 200,000 requests were received in ten months, and an equivalent number of Ponderosa pine seedlings were planted in Washington's Wenatchee National Forest. The company mailed out a certificate to each respondent in the name of Hunt-Wesson and the U.S. Forest Service stating that he or she had "participated in a national-forest-building program."

The gimmick was so successful that last July Hunt-Wesson launched something called the National Children's Forest--a tree would be planted in one of three national forests in the name of every moppet who mailed in a label from any of nine of the company's most popular products. In three months the company received 173,000 requests, and the response shows no sign of flagging. Cost to Hunt-Wesson could reach $1,000,000.

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