Haagen Dazs and Honeybees

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Who: The Häagen-Dazs® brand, which is licensed to Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc., a market leader in frozen dessert products, and http://www.experienceproject.com/ (EP), the world’s largest online forum for connecting and sharing life experiences.

What: Häagen-Dazs and EP have teamed up to motivate the public to get involved in actively helping save honey bee colonies. Honey bee pollination is directly responsible for the production of over one-third of our nation’s food supply. Over the last three years, more than one-third of honey bee colonies have died due to a mysterious phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), posing a serious risk to both food supplies and global economies. In cases of CCD, honey bees mysteriously leave their hives and die – yet scientists still don’t know exactly why.

This campaign harnesses the power of social networking not only to educate the public on why honey bee pollination is so vital to our society, but also to take tangible steps to help the situation. Unique from traditional social media campaigns, critical aspects of the partnership include recruiting people into individual challenges, such as planting flowers or eating naturally for a week, and playing trivia games that earn donations towards honey bee research. While headquartered at www.ExperienceProject.com, the campaign is tightly integrated with other social media applications, such as Facebook and Twitter.

The specific challenges include:

Plant a Flower, Help a Honey Bee Challenge
Since flowers are the primary food source for honey bees, this challenge encourages individuals to help out by planting more flowers and fruits wherever they are. Participants upload photos of themselves planting flowers via Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr. The three best photos, as judged by all of the participants, will win certificates for a year’s supply of Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

7-Day Go Natural Challenge
This challenge encourages individuals to eat and live naturally for seven straight days. Participants learn about the honey bees’ contributions to our natural food sources while also earning coupons for Häagen-Dazs products and the chance to win a year’s supply of ice cream.

Help The Honey Bees Trivia Game
Help the honey bees with just a click of the mouse! As a key part of the campaign, EP will be hosting a special general knowledge trivia game where participants earn “nectar” points for each correct answer. The accumulated points will then be converted into donations in support of scientific research to help find the causes and solutions for CCD.

When: The campaign begins August 4, 2009 and goes through September 28, 2009.

Where:
Häagen-Dazs Help The Honey Bees: http://www.experienceproject.com/helpthehoneybees
Häagen-Dazs + Experience Project Help The Honey Bees Challenges: http://www.experienceproject.com/challenges
Häagen-Dazs + Experience Project Help The Honey Bees Trivia: http://www.experienceproject.com/playtohelpthehoneybees
To access the special Help The Honey Bees Facebook application: http://apps.facebook.com/helpbees

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