Advertising campaign returns to get kids eating more healthily

By Liz Wells in Industry News 28th May 2021

A TV advert will launch the third year of Veg Power’s ‘Eat Them To Defeat Them’ campaign, which aims to inspire kids to eat more healthily and help tackle rising childhood obesity, on Saturday 29 May.

The Prepare for Battle installment – which features an army of warrior kids vowing to vanquish a legion of evil vegetables – is funded by 10 food and retail brand including Aldi, Asda, Birds Eye, Co-op, Lidl, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Waitrose.

This year’s advert features the voices of celebrities including Dame Emma Thompson, Amanda Holden, Jamie Oliver, Stephen Mulhern, Giovanna Fletcher, and Ranvir Singh.

The campaign is set to reach 5.2 million households with children, thanks to donated media from ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, as part of their £10m commitment to promoting healthy lifestyles for children.

In addition, this year the campaign is rolling out into 1,900 primary schools with veg tasting sessions, posters, teaching aids and games, and into the homes as 500,000 children will be given a vegetable reward chart and sticker pack, alongside a puzzle book co-created and funded by Public Health England’s Change4Life campaign.

The campaign coincides with the launch of a new report – ‘Veg Facts 2021’ – by The Food Foundation and Peas Please Partnership. The report reveals that almost a third of children between 5-10 years old eat less than one portion of veg a day. In addition, research conducted by YouGov for ITV and Veg Power for the campaign, found that 35% of parents worried about their children’s diets during the pandemic.

Since the campaign debuted in January 2019, it has led to sales of more than 517 million additional children’s portions of vegetables worth £63m.

Baroness Rosie Boycott, chair of Veg Power board, said “We are delighted that Eat Them To Defeat Them has returned for its third year and is set to reach even more children across the UK. As our mission is to get the UK eating more veg, engaging with children on this topic is crucial as not only will it improve their health but encourage life-long eating habits.”

Susie Braun, head of social purpose at ITV, added: “This award-winning campaign is proof that it’s possible to change not just kids’ attitudes but their behaviours around eating vegetables. We are delighted to be driving this huge alliance around Eat Them to Defeat Them for a third year, together getting literally millions more portions of vegetables into kids’ tummies.”