“Veggie Heroes” is a complete kids’ entertainment toolkit, a set of easy to assemble packaging that would turn fruits &veggies into heroes, available in Mega Image stores. The store became the amusement park for kids and the heroes turned into a book that keeps their interest for fruits, veggies & healthy nutrition alive.

In April 2017, Mega Image fruits & vegetables departments in the stores were transformed into amusement parks for kids.

We created special design packages for each type of veggies & fruits, that turned them into a superhero gang: the eggplant became the Astroeggplant, carrots became the Rocarrot, the zucchini turned into the Zucchinisaurus (not extinct at all), and the simple cauliflower got a makeover too, turning into the Cauliflosheep. Let’s not forget about the Bearkiwi, the Pineapplefish, the Pinguwitlof or the Orangesun.

And each came with its own beautifully-illustrated, healthy eating encouraging story: they could be as full of iron as the Astroeggplant, or as strong as the Pinguwitlof, as long as they get their vitamins from veggies.

Veggie Heroes starred in store performances that went live on Facebook. It also became part of an educational program for schools, kindergartens and camps, with the mission to help kids eat much healthier.

Fruits & veggies sales increased up to 300 % during the campaign.

The campaign increased Instore traffic in the Mega stores from the families’ neighborhoods with 11% - keeping in mind that Mega is already the retail store with the highest traffic in Romania.

Educational blogs & social network communities on parenting became involved in the action. 800,000 media impressions were gathered with only Facebook & PR.

The “Veggie Heroes” campaign used the direct interaction with the product / vegetable from Mega Image, one of the largest retail chains in Romania, to convey the message of the campaign: Fruits & veggies can be as fun as confectionary sweets, and convince people to choose a healthier option for kids for themselves.

We used our most affected target by over usage of sweets, kids, to reach the parents, the ones that decide about shopping.

We noticed that when families (our target) go shopping in the supermarket, sweets always get the upper hand though for kids. They even drag their parents to the sweets department. This happens because sweets are wrapped in shiny, colorful, playful packaging that attracts kids instantly. While the healthier alternatives, fruit and vegetables, look simple and boring, and are constantly being ignored by children.

As a result, according to the National Health Organization, 1 in 4 kids in Romania is obese, while 1 in 2 is overweight. It is a worrisome statistic, with obesity having life-long effects on children’s health: diabetes, liver disease or high blood pressure. Sugar is the main culprit in this story. A kid needs 3-4 tablespoons of sugar, and right now, the average child has 35 instead.

We wanted to even the odds and give a chance to the simple, boring veggies inside Mega’s outlets. So, we

Mega Image is a daily shopping grocery, but its fruits & vegetables sales were lower, behind other impulse food categories inside their stores, especially when we talk about kids.

Our brief was to create a campaign to stimulate direct trial of fruits & vegetables and put them on people’s daily shopping list.

Objectives:

Create trial and preference for fruits & veggies category

Increase in-store traffic by positioning fruits & veggies as impulse daily shopping

Create awareness about Mega Image’s fruits & veggies category and position Mega Image as a retailer which offers fresh fruits &veggies daily.