Veg Power is a not for profit dedicated to getting the UK to eat more vegetables. One of our initiatives has focused on UK seasonal vegetables following You Gov research we commissioned that found low levels of awareness about seasonal veg but interest in understanding more.
Our objectives were to:
- Increase awareness of the benefits of in-season vegetables
- Increase awareness of when different vegetables are in-season.
Our target audience were foodies – people keen on food, likely to be food trend setters, open to changing their food habits with a strong concern for the environment and their health.
Our strategy was to use our network of influencers on food and health to build the conversation around seasonality. Our goal being to create a conversation around a hashtag that would gain momentum beyond our limited resources* and become part of the daily conversation around food on social media. This way we could engage trend setters on the topic of seasonality who in turn would influence wider society and increase the understanding around vegetable seasonality.
* At launch our budget was zero but we have since spent £6,000 with outside suppliers (such as designers) and have utilised c £20,000 of personnel time from our small team of one full-time and four part-time members.
To keep the conversation alive and to give it a lasting presence we would need an ongoing series of actionable ideas to bring the issue to the fore.
With so little budget our only hope of achieving meaningful reach was to recruit a large group of significant influencers, earn their support with the appeal to the societal good of the mission and to keep them engaged with a series of creative ideas and challenges such as:
- Exciting ideas for veg in kids’ lunchboxes
- ‘Learn to stir fry’ – led by Ken Hom and Dr Giles Yeo
- Celebrating great British autumnal vegetables in partnership with Love British Food
Over the course of the #seasonalveg campaign, a wide range of influencers and celebrities lent their support by using our hashtag including chefs, food writers, activists, TV presenters and nutritionists including Jamie Oliver, Prue Leith, Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall, Emily Leary, Bee Wilson, Rukmini Iyer, Meat Free Monday and Giles Yeo.
Our (previously unused) campaign hashtag #SeasonalVeg reached 12.9m people during the period applicable to this award (Feb 21-May 22) from 8,867 posts by 913 accounts. NB: data for Twitter and Instagram only. All-in-all 596,893 engagements, giving an equivalent media value of between £300,000 and £1.6m depending on what average advertising rates used and method used to value influencer reach.
We are delighted to have been short-listed for the Best Low Budget Campaign for this work. With very modest means and much creativity we have recruited a substantial influencer network. We have significantly raised the profile of the issues and established seasonality in the day-to-day conversation of our target audience well beyond the period of our campaign. Find more about us on Instagram and at our website.