TD Bank: 85,300 Tree Kits, Made by Hand, Delivered on Time

90,531 Trees

TD Bank USA ordered 85,300 branded Tree Kits for its #TDTreeDays campaign, to be handed out at branches across the US East Coast. Working to a short lead time, ForestNation assembled every kit by hand with a local team, packed them into TD’s own branded boxes, and shipped them to the branches. A matching 85,300 trees were planted at ForestNation’s nurseries in Tanzania, where schoolchildren painted a sign to thank the bank.

A residential garage stacked floor to ceiling with branded TDTreeDays boxes of finished ForestNation Tree Kits

Background

TD Bank wanted to give customers something they could take home and grow.

The gift was a Tree Kit: a compostable cup with growing medium and seeds, packed so a customer could water it on a windowsill and watch something come up. The campaign ran under the bank’s own TD Tree Days branding.

TD Bank USA ordered 85,300 of them for branches across the US East Coast. Greenliving Enterprises was TD’s agency on the campaign.

The Challenge: 85,300 Hand-Assembled Kits on a Short Lead Time

Every Tree Kit is filled, seeded, lidded and labelled by hand.

The order had fixed requirements:

85,300 kits assembled and finished
TD branding on the kits
packing into TD’s own #TDTreeDays boxes
delivery to branches across the US East Coast

The Solution: A Local Team, a Garage and a Filling Jig

The kits were built by hand by a local team working out of a residential garage.

The garage belonged to Lori Byrd and Ray. Lori had worked with ForestNation for years, and the team was hired locally around her. For the length of the run the garage was a production line: pallets on the drive, doors open, a long bench down the middle, finished boxes stacking up the walls behind it.

The garage production line with the doors open, four people working along the filling bench and pallets of materials outside — Doors open, bench down the middle, pallets on the drive.

Filling cups one at a time does not work at that pace. The team worked from a wooden jig that held seventy cups upright at once, so a tray could be filled in one pass and lifted out together. Andrew Pothecary, who founded ForestNation, worked the line alongside them.

Andrew Pothecary holding the wooden filling jig used to fill Tree Kit cups, with the production team and stacked TDTreeDays boxes behind him — The jig. Cups drop in, the tray fills in one pass, then lifts out.

Robert Orlovski of Greenliving Enterprises flew in to inspect the line while it was running. Finished kits were packed into TD’s own boxes, which carried the #TDTreeDays branding and invited customers to share their stories.

The six person local team who hand built the TD Bank Tree Kits, standing together in the garage in front of stacked boxes — The team who built them.

The Results: 85,300 Tree Kits Handed Out, 85,300 Trees Planted

ForestNation planted 85,300 trees at its nurseries in Tanzania, one for every kit TD handed out. They are in the TD Bank Forest.

At TD Bank, we are committed to making our world a little healthier and greener for the next generation. While working with ForestNation, we were able to provide our customers with trees to plant at home, while supporting vital tree plantings around the world.

Joseph Doolan, US Head of Environmental Affairs, TD Bank

At the nursery, the schoolchildren painted a sign for TD and held it up.

Schoolchildren at a ForestNation nursery in Tanzania holding a hand painted sign thanking TD Bank and Forest Nation for planting tree seedlings with them — Our nursery in Tanzania.

Implementation Timeline

Order confirmed: TD Bank confirms the Tree Kit order for its #TDTreeDays campaign.
Materials arrive: cups, growing medium, seeds and TD’s branded boxes reach the garage.
Production runs: the local team assembles every kit by hand.
Inspection: Robert Orlovski of Greenliving Enterprises visits the line mid-run.
Dispatch: the kits ship in TD’s own boxes to branches across the US East Coast.
Planting: matching trees go into the ground at ForestNation’s nurseries in Tanzania.

Takeaway: Every Kit Was Made by Hand in the USA

TD wanted every customer to leave a branch with something living. A local team in the USA made every one of them by hand.

Planning a Large Branded Tree Kit Campaign?

ForestNation prepares and distributes branded Tree Kits for corporate campaigns and events at volume. Order custom branded Tree Kits made to your artwork, or start a 100-gift pilot to test it on one team first.