Little Garden
How kids & veggies became best friends through New World Little Garden
Client
New World
Country
New Zealand
Year
2020
The comments that New World received about the campaign on social media speak for themselves. In 2020, Kiwi families were over the moon to see Little Garden back for a third edition.
See the
case video
Meet the fun fresh friends that came into children's lives
with New World Little Garden
The famous seedling kit promotion brought back by popular demand
Since 2013, New World has been collaborating with UNGA to delight New Zealand families with fun and educational loyalty campaigns. In September 2020, Little Garden landed at New World for the third time and wrote a new page in New World and UNGA’s story.
Just like its predecessors, the New World Little Garden campaign did an amazing job at bringing kids and adults together in their gardens.
And with families spending a lot of time at home that year, they welcomed the seedling kit promotion with wide-open arms. Parents couldn’t hide their enthusiasm on social media: “Best supermarket promo EVER,” posted Korene on Facebook. “Please do Little Garden each year,” added Helen.
The powerful instant reward mechanics behind New World’s new Little Garden campaign
For 6 weeks, New World customers could receive one free seedling kit for every NZD 40 spent on groceries. They could collect up to 24 seedling kits to harvest 17 vegetable varieties, 5 herbs and 2 types of flowers at home.
The seedling kits included everything that Little Gardeners needed to grow their own plants:
- Seeds
- A compostable pot
- A soil pod
- A pop-out name tag
- Basic instructions to grow plants with love.
And since perfect Little Gardeners need accessories to live the experience to the fullest, UNGA created a new Little Garden line of plastic-free merchandise that resonated well with the campaign’s focus on sustainability:
- Collectors’ trays made out of sugarcane pulp
- Cotton kids’ aprons
- Metal watering cans
- Cotton gardening gloves
- Wood & metal gardening tools.
Educating families on nutrition and healthy choices through play
Through the power of play, New World did way more than stimulate gardening habits among families. The retailer turned all of the seed varieties into fun, loveable characters, which quickly became kids’ best friends.
This fun novelty helped children learn more about vegetables and memorize their names. Families could meet Brad Broccoli, Colleen Cauliflower, Charlie Chive, or Tommy Tomato in New World’s colourful commercials and in store. Additionally, the characters were also introduced on social media where they had their own profiles and replied to messages posted by New World’s customers.
Play was undeniably at the heart of the New World Little Garden campaign, which also showed on the retailer’s website. Shoppers could download and print a series of games and resources to learn through play.
Besides, the campaign was not only made for kids but also for adults. New World created a huge range of recipes in partnership with the Heart Foundation. Families then had everything they needed to use their Little Garden harvest and turn great produce and herbs into tasty meals for the whole family.
Kiwi families love Little Garden for its fun and educational value, and so do teachers. New World, therefore, partnered up with School Kit to put the appeal of Little Garden at the service of more than 3,000 classrooms in New Zealand.
In 2020, the third edition of New World Little Garden not only reached families in store but also 104,000 kids in schools.
High awareness and participation driven by a memorable customer experience
“Since the day the last Little Garden promotion wrapped in 2017 customers have asked when we would be bringing it back again,” said Pippa Prain, Head of Marketing and CX, New World. Ever since the first promotion, the hype around New World Little Garden has lied on the appeal of seedling kits as customer rewards.
The retailer also knows what makes a powerful campaign, and communication and activation always play a big part.
During the Little Garden campaign, customers had the chance to win their share of over NZD 350k worth of prizes, including an electric car. All they had to do was purchase any participating brand and swipe their Clubcard–a great way to boost the use of New World loyalty cards.
Moreover, New World made sure to have a strong in-store execution. The colorful POS displays and employees’ participation had customers immersed into the Little Garden universe as soon as they set foot in New World stores. The retailer’s communication strategy that highlighted the campaign, both online and offline, also contributed to its success.
“New World took it to the next level with the fun addition of the fresh characters in their latest Little Garden campaign,” says Jessica Richards, Senior Account Manager, UNGA. “Characters like ‘Betty Beet’ and ‘Tommy Tomato’ helped engage kids and get them excited to learn more about where their food comes from. It’s great when our clients get behind our concepts so creatively!”
The New World Little Garden campaign drove high awareness, which positively impacted store traffic, sales and brand loyalty alike. The public especially appreciated the quality of the seedling kits, with which they kept growing veggies and herbs even long after the campaign ended.
“We wanted to use this Little Garden to help us step closer to our goal of ‘Giving Kiwis the best start in life by educating on nutrition and healthy choices and making affordable and healthy food available to all’.”
Pippa Prain
Head of Marketing and CX
New World
About New World
New World is a New Zealand supermarket chain and counts 143 stores nationwide. It is a part of Foodstuffs, a proudly 100% New Zealand owned and operated organization made up of two regional co-operatives.
New World knows that it makes people happy when they get together with friends and family over food. That’s why New World stores are created to deliver the best overall shopping experience, to completely meet shoppers’ needs with the best possible range of groceries and fresh food, top quality, excellent customer service, and great value for money.
