OFRI debuts new animated ads

Portland, Ore. — A worker in a yellow hardhat hammers in a sign on a forested hillside with a stunning vista of a snowy mountain and newly planted trees poking up from the ground. Suddenly, the camera pans over and the tiny seedlings grow swiftly before our eyes into towering giants as a deer gazes up and butterflies flit overhead.

The wondrous scene appears in one of two new animated educational advertisements from the Oregon Forest Resources Institute (OFRI) that started airing this month. They’re part of a campaign aimed at informing Oregonians about the importance of replanting trees after logging to sustain forests — and all the benefits they provide — for future generations. The animated ads are airing in television markets statewide, as well as on streaming services and social media, through early June. 

Although OFRI’s educational advertising program has long been a part of its work to advance the public’s understanding of the social, environmental and economic benefits of Oregon’s forests, this is the first time the Institute has produced animated ads. The animation was created for OFRI by the Portland-based video production and animation studio Deep Sky. OFRI and Deep Sky worked for nine months to complete the suite of animations.

“Animation allowed us to highlight the amazing things that forests and trees do that you simply can’t capture through live action, such as speeding up the process of a forest growing to maturity or zooming into the trunk of a tree as it absorbs carbon molecules from the atmosphere through photosynthesis,” says OFRI Director of Communications Jordan Benner. 

The ads, called “Forests for All” and “What We Can’t See,” can be watched on OFRI’s YouTube page. Both spots direct viewers to the Institute’s main website, OregonForests.org, where they can learn more about reforestation, carbon sequestration and sustainable forest management, among other topics.

About the Oregon Forest Resources Institute:

The Oregon Forest Resources Institute supports the forest sector and the stewardship of natural resources by advancing Oregonians’ understanding of the social, environmental and economic benefits of our forests.