Hi friend – Rob here.

Next time someone asks:

You can think of many you like, but if you're drawing a blank, think of this one:

ITV and VegPower's Gold winning IPA Effectiveness Award, from 2022.

As a strategist and a dad, i absolutely love it.

It's a story about how turning vegetables into villains helped kids feel like heroes.

It led to stuff like this.

This is a summary of the first principles behind the work.

Full credit for the data and story sits with The IPA.

(Sadly i can't distribute the original!)

Let's get into it.

🚨 Problem:

Despite knowing the benefits, 80% of British kids were not eating enough veggies. VegPower (a campaigning group from the Food Foundation) and ITV decided to do something about it.

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💡 Solution:

• Reframe the product as bad. Don't say veggies are good. Reframe them as bad. Real bad. Villains-you-have-to-defeat-by-eating bad. This made consumption more fun than fuss.
• Entertainment, not education. The idea and execution were silly in nature. Not serious, like other health messaging. This is how you get kids (and most people) interested. Walt Disney: "I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate and hope they were entertained".
• Find a supergang. ITV and VegPower worked with supermarkets. Media. Schools. Everyone worked into a "Veg of the Week" calendar. This helped give depth to broad reach media (TV et al), while keeping everyone focused. In love, war and supervillain stories, all is fair in the game of fame.

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📊 Results:

• Brand:
  • 19% more kids agreed eating vegetables is fun
  • 54% more kids wanting to eat more vegetables.
• Business:
  • £98.1m in incremental vegetable sales over three years (ROMI of £6.34 per £1 spent).
  • Creative advertising proved to be six times more effective than price subsidies.
  • Econometrics showed the campaign was the largest driver of veggie sales post pandemic.

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