Written by David Taylor, Commercial Director.
Amongst many insights informing our development of the Vegesaurs brand was Jamie’s Food Revolution, which highlighted how some kids couldn’t differentiate a tomato from a potato. It was shocking to see kids who had never encountered vegetables in their raw form.
Cheeky Little purposely avoided building nutritional information into the storytelling, as that would surely kill the fun, entertaining and engaging brand we wanted to create.
In recent years introducing a healthy diet to kids has become both a parental and political issue to resolve. However, most of the media trying to address this with kids is dry and dull. A window of opportunity existed for someone to create an engaging, entertaining brand, which encourages kids to explore the world of vegetables!
The idea was to first create a platform for parents, teachers and caregivers to start a conversation with children regarding recognition of fruits and vegetables. Our ambition is to then see supporting assets and collateral built to extend beyond the series and embrace the educational opportunities.
We are doing this for all the right reasons.
The World Health Organization (WHO) most recent data tells us over 390 million children and adolescents aged 5–19 years were overweight in 2022, including 160 million who were living with obesity.
Vegesaurs has a strong unique selling point, and a global target market we know will be receptive. This is very much about building an appealing brand with strong social capital. The commercial potential for the property is definitely there. It’s a brand that endears kids to fruit and vegetables in a completely unique way, which should be hugely appealing to parents.
As Vegesaurs increases its reach and popularity via the Immersive Experience, now is the time to undertake strategic partnerships and licensing deals to build the global presence of the brand and further build audience engagement.
There will be toys, there will be games, puzzles, clothes, but our desire is to find partners who see the potential for Vegesaurs to deliver on the educational aspect of the fruit and veg in the show. People who can help us to extend the brand's engagement beyond entertainment to the point of helping kids make healthier food choices.
There are already commercial success stories. In Europe we launched a Vegesaurs Promotion Campaign through Lidl in Spain, Austria and Denmark. The campaign won the ‘Best Licensed Promotion / Loyalty Campaign’ for 2023 at the Bologna Licensing Awards in early April 2024. It was an appropriate promotion of fruit and veg sales through a retail outlet using Vegesaurs to drive engagement. This is commercial success for the brand in our eyes.
Having said that, if all we manage to do is introduce a generation of kids to the existence of a vast range of fruit and veg via entertainment and gameplay, it’s not a bad outcome.
