McCann Kicks Kids' Sugar Habit with Veggie Heroes

Fed up of forcing your kids to eat healthily? Well, now you don’t have to thanks to a fun campaign from McCann Bucharest for Romanian supermarket, Ahold Delhaize.

Responding to research from the Romanian Health Ministry that reveals a quarter of kids are overweight, the agency created Veggie Heroes, focusing on the packaging that fruit and vegetables arrive in.

Rather than disguise vegetables in creative culinary concoctions, veggies now come in colourful containers, taking on new identities as Robocarrot, astroeggplant, cauliflosheep and zucchinsaurus among others – dressing carrots as robots, aubergines as astronauts, cauliflowers as sheep and courgettes as dinosaurs (below).

These wrappers are sure to rival the vibrant sweet wrappers that currently succeed at tempting children.

“What we wanted was for kids to drag their parents to the fruit and vegetable shelves, just like they're doing in front of the sweets shelf,” says Catalin Dobre, the agency’s CCO. “Of course all parents want to please their kids and buy them the stuff their want, but now they can do this while also making sure they eat healthily.” 

A total of eight vegetables were packaged this way, together with a story book about each of the characters.

And as the case study (above) proves, the campaign was hugely successful – boosting fruit and veg sales by 300% and helping kids to kick their sugar habit.