“In addition to funding a group of leading bee researchers and beekeepers at the University of California at Davis and Pennsylvania State University. Learn more at helpthehoneybees.com.”

I also learned from the e-mail that when bees return to their hive after scoring some nectar, they do a unique dance to communicate the whereabouts of the new nectar source.
Now remember….I have learned all of this via the pitch e-mail. Then, I’m told that they’ve produced a video to bring awareness to the problem and give us an inside look at the unique hive dance. The pitch ends with “this is our hip-hop interpretation of the dance.”
Okay, cue the YouTube video. I watched the video and I have to say….I was confused. If I hadn’t read all of the pitch set-up, I wouldn’t have understood anything about the dance or what it meant. And, if they found nectar — why did the bees die at the end? Or did I miss something and they didn’t die?

So, I decide to check out the website. Surely, it will tell the rest of the story. It was chock full of information, but it had absolutely no tie (in words or visuals) to the video. It looked like two completely different companies produced the two pieces to the campaign, without ever seeing what the other side was doing.
Had I not read the pitch e-mail, I would have been completely lost by now. The pieces didn’t fit together to make a whole. So here are my questions for you.

• Had I not told you the bee story upfront, would you have gleaned any/all of that from the video alone?
• Would the video alone compelled you to visit the site?
• If you viewed the video and the website, would they have supported each other?
• Did the attitude of the video feel appropriate to the problem?
• Did the website feel appropriate to the problem?
• What would you have advised Haagen-Daz if they’d come to you with this “we want to help the bees” challenge?