Exciting brave new campaign to get kids to eat veg - Eat Them To Defeat Them

“Eat Them To Defeat Them”

Exciting brave new campaign to get kids to eat veg

• Veg Power and ITV join forces to launch landmark ad campaign to get kids to eat more vegetables and improve the nation’s health

• Launching tonight in Coronation Street and across ITV’s biggest programmes

• Unique alliance of all the major supermarket retailers and brands supporting the campaign

The UK ranks 21 out of 28 in the EU for fresh vegetable consumption. (Euromonitor data)

96% of teenagers and 80% of primary school age children don’t eat enough vegetables (Veg Facts – The Food Foundation)

44% of children will remove at least some, if not all of the salad from a burger (YouGov)

Nearly half of parents (49.2%) wait at least 5 minutes or more at family mealtime for their children to finish their vegetables, that equates to 30 hours a year. (You Gov)

#EatThemToDefeatThem campaign advert available to download here 

Campaign images available from www.itv.com/presscentre/itvpictures

Eat Them To Defeat Them is a radical new national advertising campaign, launching today, Friday 25th January on ITV, and STV, that aims to inspire kids to eat more healthily and help tackle rising childhood obesity.  

Despite past campaigns 80% of primary school kids still aren’t eating enough vegetables and this ground breaking initiative looks to change that. The campaign is being launched by a partnership between ITV and Veg Power and Eat Them To Defeat Them will engage with kids and parents in a new way, looking to reinvigorate how vegetables are viewed and consumed.

The campaign has been funded by a unique alliance of supermarkets and brands that have donated to the Eat Them To Defeat Them initiative. Aldi, Asda, Birds Eye, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsburys, Tesco and Waitrose all coming together to help their customers live healthier lives. 

Prominent UK advertising agency adam&eveDDB have created the ambitious 60’ advert that will premiere on prime-time ITV during Coronation Street tonight (Friday 25th January) and across ITV’s biggest programmes including The Voice, Dancing on Ice and Britain’s Got Talent. It is brave and bold and will push boundaries and engage with kids like no other healthy eating initiative has done before.

The campaign will be supported across ITV by talent and programming, it also has the support of writer and broadcaster Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver.

The advert and supporting creative including posters, stickers and wall charts,  will editorially position kids as the heroes as they help their parents save the world from being overrun by angry vegetables. They have to Eat Them To Defeat Them.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Food Writer and Broadcaster said:

“I’m really pleased and excited to be involved in Veg Power. Getting our kids to eat more vegetables is simply vital - and it’s never been more so.   This campaign is brave, fun and engaging. It will inspire kids to enjoy the huge range of tastes, textures and colours that the brilliant world of veg has to offer.  A diet that’s big on vegetables will be a massive win for our long term health.  I'm hoping to see carrots and broccoli flying off the shelves!”

Carolyn McCall, CEO, ITV said:

“This campaign will reach millions of parents and children through our biggest and most popular shows and it is unlike anything that has gone before. We’re proud to use the power of TV to take a new, bold and brave approach to encouraging kids to eat more vegetables.”

Baroness Rosie Boycott, Chair of Veg Power  and trustee of The Food Foundation said:

“We are delighted that Veg Power has joined with ITV to launch our very first campaign Eat Them To Defeat Them. With the aim of using ‘advertising for good’  and engaging and entertaining kids rather than using the well-worn health message, we can really shift the dial and hope to see long lasting behaviour change.  Having all the major retailers will help us achieve huge reach and impact.   

It is vital that we achieve change in both supply and demand if we are to see real transformation of our food system and our work with both Peas Please and Veg Power are tackling both straight on.”   

Veg Power is born out of the work of The Food Foundation and Peas Please. It aims to harness the great creative minds of the advertising and marketing world and turn their skills to making engaging and powerful content aimed at changing our perception of vegetables in order to encourage our kids to eat more. The Veg Power fund aims to use positive messages of vitality, vibrancy and wonderful taste to give vegetables a modern appeal.

Other key partners in the campaign include The Beano, ResearchBods, Goodstuff and Taylor Herring.  We will be conducting an evaluation with expert input from Kantar Worldpanel, University of Cambridge & University of Oxford  and support from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity.  

Available for Interview

Clare Phillips – Director of Social Purpose, ITV

Baroness Rosie Boycott – Chair Veg Power

Jo Ralling – Campaign Director, Veg Power

Dan Parker – Chief Marketing Officer, Veg Power

Mat Goff – Chief Executive Officer, adam&eveDDB

Richard Brim – Chief Creative Officer, adam&eveDDB

Editors’ notes

About Veg Power

Veg Power was created as a result of the Peas Please campaign a collaboration between the Food Foundation,  Nourish Scotland, Food Sense Wales and the WWF to make it easier for people to choose veg.  

It aims to harness the great creative minds of the advertising and marketing world and turn their skills to making engaging and powerful content aimed at changing our perception of vegetables in order to encourage our kids to eat more. The Veg Power fund aims to use positive messages of vitality, vibrancy and wonderful taste to give vegetables a modern appeal.    

www.vegpower.org.uk

@VegPowerUK

About ITV

ITV is an integrated producer broadcaster and the largest commercial television network in the UK. It is the home of popular television from the biggest entertainment events, to original drama, major sport, landmark factual series and independent news. It operates a family of channels including ITV, ITVBe, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 and CITV, which are broadcast free-to-air. ITV is also focused on delivering its programming via the ITV Hub, mobile devices, video on demand and third party platforms. ITV Studios is a global production business, creating and selling programmes and formats from offices in the UK, US, Australia, France, Germany, the Nordics and the Netherlands. It is the largest and most successful commercial production company in the UK, the largest independent non-scripted indie in the US and ITV Studios Global Entertainment is a leading international distribution businesses.

About adam&eveDDB

We are a creative communications agency made up of people from the worlds of advertising, design, content, digital, media and social strategy. We have the hunger and energy of a start up with the resource and reach of a network. We work with a range of clients including John Lewis, FIFA, Google, Marmite, Waitrose, Unilever, Samsung, Born Free, Veg Power and Volkswagen. The Veg Power campaign continues adam&eveDDB’s focus on creating solutions to societal problems. It follows the agency’s award-winning campaigns such as ‘Get the Inside Out’ for Lloyds Bank, in partnership with Mental Health UK; the Project84 campaign for CALM, which resulted in the appointment of the first UK Minister for Suicide Prevention; and the #TrollingIsUgly for Cybersmile tackling cyberbullying. Together, the CALM and Cybersmile campaigns won 10 Cannes Lions.

Veg Statistics

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2014 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 4th - 7th January 2019.  The survey was carried out online. The figures are representative of all UK adults (aged 18+).

Getting kids to eat veg is as a battle

• Nearly half of parents (48%) agree that it can be a battle to get their kids to eat more veg 

• 51.7% of parents have to tell their kids to finish their veg. 

• 44% of children will remove at least some, if not all, of the salad from a burger.

• 43% of adults say their children are fussier eaters than when they were children

Parents end up waiting for their kids to eat up veg

• Nearly half of parents (49.2%) wait at least 5 minutes or more at family mealtime for their children to finish their vegetables, (that equates to 30 hours a year)

For some, getting kids to eat veg is a source of arguments 

• Nearly 1 in 5 parents (17%) agree that asking their children to eat up their vegetables is a source of arguments 

Parents wish their kids ate more veg

• 71.4% of parents wish their child ate more vegetables

And parents would buy more if they knew their kids would eat them.

• Over half of parents (58%) would buy more vegetables if they knew their children would eat them 

But parents don’t lead by example. 

• More than half (55%) of parents choose chips as a side dish over salad and veg when eating out.  

Parents recognise that their kids only eat veg if they are encouraged to do so 

• 76.5% of adults have to encourage their children to eat more veg

Parents are resorting to using rewards and threats to encourage kids to eat their greens

• Half of parents use the phrase 'You’ll be strong if you eat your vegetables' to get their child to eat their veg, followed closely with 39% using the threat of ‘You won’t get dessert if you don’t eat your vegetables’. 

• 21% won’t let their child leave the table until they’ve eaten their veg. 

• 18% use rewards as a way to encourage veg eating

Parents have to throw out a lot of veg that doesn’t get eaten.  

• More than 8 out of 10 parents (83%) have thrown away leftover vegetables from their children’s plates after a meal 

• A third of parents (32.8%) often throw away leftover vegetables from their children’s plates after a meal

Uneaten veg stops parents from buying veg

• 59.7% of parents would buy more veg if they knew they’d be eaten before their best before date.

Parents would buy more veg if they knew it’d get eaten. 

• 57.7% of parents would buy more veg if they knew their kids would eat them

• 51% would purchase vegetables more often if they were cheaper on offer or promotion.

Most Loved and most hated veg

Sweetcorn (21%) and carrots (20%) are children (0-17 years) favourite vegetables with butternut squash, cabbage and cauliflower the least favourite.