For decades, adults have been telling their kids, “Eat you veggies”, “Vegetables are good for you”.
But the typical reaction from the little ones is, "ewwwww vegetables!" or "broccoli is gross!"
To get kids to eat their veggies adults say things like, "If you don't eat your vegetables, you won't grow!"
Or "Eat your broccoli! Starving kids in Kenya would be grateful for that!"
The problem? None of this stuff works.
In the UK, 52 in every 100 kids don't eat any daily vegetables.
But ITV and Veg Power have figured out how to persuade British kids to eat more vegetables.
In 2019 they launched a campaign called "Eat them to defeat them".
It boosted sales of vegetables in the UK — £63 million in extra sales from February 2019 to July 2020.
That's equal to 517 million child-sized vegetable portions.
Why was this campaign successful?
Imagine a 60-second film that shows the uprising of evil vegetables emerging from the underground. "They will stop at nothing until they've taken over the World."
The only way to defeat these evil invaders? Kids must eat them.
If you’re tying to encourage kids to eat more veggies, why the hell would you create a campaign that paints vegetables as evil? It sounds silly and counterintuitive.
But it’s actually a geniiiiiiiiiiius way of reframing the problem.
Previous healthy eating campaigns in the UK made the mistake of talking down to kids. That's why those campaigns failed.
But "Eat them to defeat them" has been a huuuuuuge success because it presents kids as the heroes (because “adults failed”).
Persuasion 101 tip: If you're trying to persuade people to change behavior, try first to get inside their head. Feel life the way they feel. Then adapt your message to THEIR worldview, not yours.
Takeaways for your business:
1. Stop trying to persuade your target audience to change their worldview. Instead, adapt your message to THEIR worldview. It’s 100x more effective. Because it helps their minds remove the psychological barriers that are blocking behavioral change.
2. Most business and real-world problems are perception problems. Reframe the problem and you’re halfway to the solution. How? Start by asking better questions.
Here's a handy tool: The Phoenix Checklist.
Developed by the CIA to “encourage agents to look at a challenge from many different angles.” (Source: The Strategy & Planning Scrapbook)
Your pal,
Miguel Ferreira
Founder & Chief Copywriter, Teardwn + Nishi + Copy Ipsum
(Because a website without good copy is like Chuck Norris without a beard. Powerless. Unnatural. A tragedy. Work with me).
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