adam&eveDDB win IPA Effectiveness Awards President’s Prize for ITV & VegPower

In 2016, childhood obesity was declared a national emergency by the UK Government. This was a problem underlined by the fact that by 2018 Brits were eating fewer vegetables than in the 1980s, despite upwards of £222m of recent governmental campaigns advocating their benefits.

To combat this, ITV and VegPower tasked adam&eveDDB to develop a strategy that would get primary school children eating more vegetables. Knowing that children hated vegetables with a passion, adam&eveDDB developed their ‘big, silly idea’ that veggies were evil and trying to take over the world. It was up to the children to 'Eat Them to Defeat Them'.

Following an initial donation of £2m of ITV airtime, the campaign formed partnerships with 11 major supermarkets, Britain’s largest vegetable brand, Birds Eye, four media titles and eight media owners, over 100 influencers and 1,900 schools to cover production costs and ultimately contribute media space worth £12.5m over the three years of the campaign.

Using TV as a main driver of reach to open kids’ eyes to the veggies’ dastardly plot, adam&eveDDB also created a Veg of the Week ‘Battle Plan’ to provide partners with a clear direction of which enemy to promote when, used OOH to show evil vegetables taking over our high streets and worked with influencers including Ant and Dec. They also developed lesson plans and recipes to engage with children directly at meal times.

In addition to its commercial success, including £98.1m in incremental sales at a ROMI of £6.34, 'Eat Them to Defeat Them' has driven a remarkable change of attitude among those the campaign reached. The number of children wanting to eat more vegetables increased by 54%, ultimately leading to the consumption of an incremental 981 million portions of vegetables.

Other key results:

• 'Eat Them to Defeat Them' generated a 2.2% uplift in sales of vegetables, nearly 5x the initial target.
• The number of children agreeing that eating vegetables can be fun increased by 19%.
• The campaign drove consumption of an additional 39,241 tons of vegetables over three years.

Says IPA President and VCCP International CEO and Vice-Chairman Julian Douglas: "Congratulations to adam&eveDDB for winning the President’s Prize for Behavioural Change at this year’s IPA Effectiveness Awards. They have found a brilliant solution to an age-old problem, by flipping it on its head with creative that speaks to children in a fun and engaging way while also impacting the choices of parents."

Says Convenor of Judges and Global Chief Strategy Officer at McCann, Harjot Singh: "The judges found this paper to be a textbook example of identifying a problem, setting objectives, pulling on insight and research, and ultimately driving behaviour change. Empathy and understanding of the young audience was evident and impressively applied."

Says Heather Clark, Senior Vice-President, Mass, Direct and Digital Marketing, SickKids and Client Judge, IPA Effectiveness Awards: "I thought it was such a great way to pull out a human truth, specifically for kids, to help get them to eat more vegetables and then taking that very silly, yet powerful idea, and pulling it across every communications channel. And as a mother who is constantly trying to get my three kids to eat vegetables, it is such a great tool for parents."

Acknowledged as the world’s most rigorous and prestigious Awards scheme, the IPA Effectiveness Awards require winners to demonstrate the value created by their marketing and communications activity.

In addition to the President’s Prize Grand Prix, adam&eveDDB were named Effectiveness Company of the Year for winning Gold prizes for ITV & VegPower and Schmackos, Silver for Waitrose & Partners and a Bronze award for Volkswagen. In total, eight Gold, seven Silver and 13 Bronze prizes, along with 10 Special Prizes, were awarded to companies from the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and Chile across Not-for-profit and Global, Regional and Single Market categories.

All winning case studies are available to download from the IPA website or from WARC, video summaries of each winning paper are also available. The 2022 IPA Effectiveness Awards are sponsored by Google, System1, Thinkbox, The B2B Institute at LinkedIn and WARC.

The IPA Effectiveness Awards kick off the EffWorks Global 2022 Conference, which will feature an industry leading line-up of marketing effectiveness experts and cultural commentators presenting a mix of new effectiveness R&D, unique case studies, keynotes, panels and live Q&A’s across two days of content, including an in-depth reflection on the Awards and Grand Prix paper with Chair Gavin Patterson and Convenor of Judges Harjot Singh at 13.20 on Thursday 13 October.

Full list of 2022 IPA Effectiveness Awards Winners:

Special Prizes:

• Grand Prix:
  • Cadbury, Mondelēz by VCCP - Cadbury - “There’s a glass & a half in everyone” How intrinsic purpose can transform a brand’s fortunes
• The Channon Prize for Best New Learning:
  • Tesco by BBH and MediaCom - From serving shoppers to serving the nation
• Best B2B:
  • PERGRAPHICA©, Mondi by True - From pushing paper to pulling on heartstrings
• Best Demonstration of Purpose (For-Profit):
  • Cadbury, Mondelēz by VCCP - Cadbury - “There’s a glass & a half in everyone” How intrinsic purpose can transform a brand’s fortunes
• Best Demonstration of Purpose (Not-For-Profit):
  • SickKids Foundation by Cossette - Delivering Transformational Growth. SickKids VS The Greatest Challenges in Child Health
• Best Small Budget:
  • Sandy Hook Promise by BBDO NY - Back-to-School Essentials
• The President’s Prize for Behavioural Change:
  • ITV and VegPower by adam&eveDDB - Eat Them to Defeat Them by ITV and VegPower: How a big, silly idea solved a big, serious problem
• The Broadbent Prize for Best Dedication to Effectiveness:
  • McDonald’s
• Effectiveness Company of the Year:
  • adam&eveDDB
• Effectiveness Network of the Year:
  • OMD Group

Gold winners:

• Not-for-profit Entries:
  • SickKids Foundation by Cossette - Delivering Transformational Growth. SickKids VS The Greatest Challenges in Child Health
• Regional Market Entries:
  • Aldi UK by McCann Manchester and UM Manchester - Kevin versus John - How a humble carrot usurped a national treasure to win the UK’s Christmas Ad crown
• Single Market Entries:
  • Cadbury, Mondelēz by VCCP - Cadbury - “There’s a glass & a half in everyone” How intrinsic purpose can transform a brand’s fortunes
  • ITV and VegPower by adam&eveDDB - Eat Them to Defeat Them by ITV and VegPower: How a big, silly idea solved a big, serious problem
  • KFC, Yum! Brands by Mother and Mindshare - KFC: ‘The Right Way’ to rebuild a brand
  • McDonald's by Leo Burnett London and OMD UK - How We Got Customers Lovin' It And Kept Them Lovin' It, No Matter What.
  • McDonald's by Wieden + Kennedy New York - Famous Orders – How McDonald’s created a new generation of fans
  • Schmackos, Mars Petcare by adam&eveDDB - Sales Go Wacko For Schmackos

Silver winners:

• Global Market Entries:
  • Baileys, Diageo by craig + bridget and Mother - The pleasure dividend
• Not-for-profit Entries:
  • Sandy Hook Promise by BBDO NY - Back-to-School Essentials
• Single Market Entries:
  • Boursin, Bel by Spark Foundry - From the Christmas Cheeseboard to the Summer Picnic Blanket
  • Cazoo by Engine and Cazoo - Cazoo - The art of instilling confidence
  • Long Live The Local, British Beer and Pub Association by Havas London and Havas Media - How the many changed the mind of an audience of one
  • Tesco by BBH and MediaCom - From serving shoppers to serving the nation
  • Waitrose & Partners by adam&eveDDB and Manning Gottlieb OMD - Making Purpose Taste Good

Bronze winners:

• Not-for-profit Entries:
  • Census 2021, Office for National Statistics by M&C Saatchi and Manning Gottlieb OMD - The Power of Us; Involving Everyone in Census 2021
  • Médecins Sans Frontières UK by M.i. Media - How smart media investment delivered transformative change for MSF
• Regional Market Entries:
  • PERGRAPHICA®, Mondi by True - From pushing paper to pulling on heartstrings
• Single Market Entries:
  • Barclays by BBH - Purpose Pays: The Next Chapter
  • Cherries from Chile, ASOEX A.G. (Chilean Fresh Fruit Exporters Association) by ASOEX - Enjoying the Red Moment in China with Chilean Cherries
  • Domino's by VCCP - The hills are alive with the sound of pizza
  • Dove, Unilever by Ogilvy UK - Taking on taking selfies. How Dove continues to deliver business value through social impact
  • eve Sleep by Creature - Helping the nation switch off with eve Sleep
  • Hargreaves Lansdown by McCann Demand - Robbing the bank – Turning the nation’s savers into investors
  • Lamb, Meat & Livestock Australia by The Monkeys Australia part of Accenture Song - How ‘Make Lamb, Not Walls’ made history for MLA
  • Rugby League World Cup 2021 by McCann Manchester and UM Manchester - RLWC2021: How togetherness sold tickets in lockdown Britain
  • Vodafone by Grey London - Curated inconsistency: how being inconsistent helped Vodafone Ireland reboot its broadband business
  • Volkswagen by adam&eveDDB and PHD Media - Fuelling the future: How advertising helped fund the re-engineering of Volkswagen