Save the Bee Population Campaign

Save the Bee Population Campaign

Good morning friends, happy Monday January 16th. Today, I would like to share with you another project that I have worked on.

Project Objectives:

The purpose of this project was to create a marketing campaign that would help create awareness of an environmental or social issue. For this project I partnered up with a good friend of mine, Ryan Stockie. We chose the topic of the declining bee population as our environmental issue. Currently this is just a fictitious campaign and all the dates and materials are conceptual.

Background Information:

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in the pollination of plants. Bees play an important role in pollinating flowering plants, and are the major type of pollinator in ecosystems that contain flowering plants. It is estimated that one-third of the human food supply depends on insect pollination, most of which is accomplished by bees. The most effective is the honeybee, which pollinates most fruit and vegetables, nuts, sunflowers, alfalfa, which is used for cattle feed, and cotton.

There was a dramatic reduction in the number of honey bees in the US between 1972 and 2006. The honey bee is now almost absent. At the same time there was a significant decline in the number of colonies maintained by beekeepers. This decline was a result of urbanization, pesticide use, mites, and commercial beekeepers’ retiring.

The first thing that can be done to help protect these pollinators are don’t use unnecessary pesticides. Bees are sensitive to chemicals. Pesticides that are sprayed on blooming plants can be toxic to a visiting bee. The next thing that can be done is to provide food sources for bees. The flowers in your garden are a great source of pollen and nectar for busy bees. Planting a variety of flowers that will bloom from spring to fall will help. Although you may not like the carpenter bees that use your porch as a nesting site, they are out there pollinating your garden. Hopefully you won’t spray these bees with insecticides to get rid of them. Instead try to make another nesting site more attractive to them. Honey bees nest in hollow trees and other cavities, so if you could leave that space for them. You can provide other nesting sites by drilling holes in untreated lumber and putting that lumber in a warm, sunny area. You could also leave brushy areas undisturbed so bees can keep their nests from year to year.

Creative Material:

These posters are designed to attract the viewers attention and get them to go and visit Plan Bee’s website, www.savethebee.org. There are 2 different poster designs created. One for the repercussions of losing the bee, and one for the benefits of increasing the bee population.

The visuals on both types of posters are simple pictographs which are placed in a mathematical formula to express the outcomes of either a life with the bee or a life without. Each poster also displays a particular stat that will help get the viewers attention and make them think about getting more information from the website. The bottom right corner of each poster contains the Plan Bee logo and website information. The posters are designed to be shown on either white paper with black text or on black paper with white text. Both styles of poster are interchangeable depending on their location and target audience. The font chosen for these posters is Ariel Black. This is to help emphasize the posters simple yet bold statements.

Implementation:

On April 18, 2011 we will unveil our “Save the Bee” campaign created by the Plan Bee organization to the public. May 1, 2011 we will release our campaign posters to the general public. These posters will be distributed and posted up on school walls, city buses, bus stops, billboards, and businesses. June 1, 2011 we will release our “Save the Bee” merchandise to the general public. We will be selling bee habitats, plant seeds, and articles of clothing. These items will be sold at at local Shoppers Drug Marts stores, Walmart, Zellers, and all grocery stores. All proceeds will go to the “Save the Bee” fund. July 1, 2011 we will start our “Save the Bee” fundraiser which will be held at the Kitchener Auditorium at 7:00pm-11pm, tickets will be $10.00 a person and kids are free. There will be a guest speaker that will be talking about the declining bee population and how we can help solve the problem. There will also be a live music performance from the popular music group the Black Eyed Peas who are major supporters of the event. All tickets and proceeds will go the “Save the Bee” fund.

Thank-you for taking the time to look over this project. Like always please feel free to post any comments or questions you have.
Hope you have a happy and productive week.