The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2022
HP's Printing Trees grows a forest to the sound of a printer — for HP+
Wieden+Kennedy's film for HP+ makes a whole forest assemble to printer noise, showing that every page printed regenerates real woodland.
HP
What it had to solve
HP's HP+ subscription promised that real forests are regenerated with every page a subscriber prints, with 200,000 acres to be restored by 2024 — but the link between a page and a tree was abstract, and printing itself carries environmental guilt. The brand needed the promise to feel tangible.
How it works
HP's campaign, Printing Trees, set out to answer the environmental guilt attached to printing by dramatising the promise behind the HP+ subscription: that real forests are regenerated with every page a subscriber prints, with 200,000 acres to be restored by 2024.
The film opens on a single tree growing to the sound and rhythm of a piece of paper printing from an HP printer. It then builds, visually and sonically, into more and more trees being 'printed' to a symphony of printer sounds, until an entire forest and its thriving ecosystem have been 'printed'.
Aired in January 2022 and directed by Megaforce for Wieden+Kennedy Portland, the spot gave the abstract link between a printed page and a planted tree a tangible, replayable form. It won a D&AD Wood Pencil in 2022, with jury comments praising a brand that speaks openly about a problem it is part of.
Why it lands
- Sound carried the idea: printer noises scored into a symphony made the mechanical act of printing feel generative rather than wasteful.
- Building a whole ecosystem from a single page made the scale of the 200,000-acre promise imaginable.
- Anchoring the film to HP+ made the fantasy literal, since subscribers were told their own pages fund real restoration.
What it did
The spot made HP+'s reforestation promise visible and audible — a single page 'prints' a tree, then a whole forest — and anchored the 200,000-acre restoration claim in an image people could replay. It won a D&AD Wood Pencil in 2022, with jurors praising a brand openly addressing a problem its industry is part of.
What you can take
When the benefit is an offset, sell the offset as the product: turning every printed page into an audible, visible growing tree converts an abstract promise into a sensory experience.
Since then
Printing Trees became a flagship expression of the HP+ forest story and entered the D&AD Awards archive as a 2022 Wood Pencil winner. HP's stated program ran toward the 200,000 acres of restored forest the campaign promised by 2024, keeping the link between printing and regeneration at the center of its subscription message.
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