The brief

Launched in 2016, New World supermarkets’ Little Garden remains one of the most beloved supermarket campaigns in recent memory. It captured the hearts of communities, and inspired enduring engagement and cult-like Facebook groups dedicated to seedling swaps. The challenge this time round was to hit new heights and bring something new to the table.

Our mission was to grow the community and engagement organically by taking it into fresh social media territory driven by big personalities, education, and meaningful content.

Campaign objectives:

• Create engaged and self-sustaining social media communities
• Drive education around nutrition and better eating
• Inspire our audience with meaningful content

 

The work

Our strategy was to create an exciting social media campaign that would be the BIG ‘Little Garden’ Vege Takeover. We need a social-first idea that can house  all of the amazing magic that Little Garden will bring to audiences in September. We achieved this by;

• Engage Instagram users with beautiful unique content
• Engage and create self-sustaining Facebook communities
• Highlight education on produce and better eating
• Celebrate community-led initiatives (and so reflect New World as locally owned and operated)
• Celebrate New Zealand produce grown locally
• Up the ante of the 2016 campaign, growing the width and breadth of the impact

 

The outcome

2020’s Little Garden social execution was built with our target audience – young families entirely at its heart, which is why it’s seen such evergreen results.

One of the first indications that our campaign was proving successful was seeing the community become self-sustaining, with users elevating conversations with genuine and supportive advice. We credit our community managers with setting the standard of communication and managing expectations – something that buoyed along the earliest stages. While the campaign ran from 7 September to 19 October, page engagement has continued throughout summer with consistent engagement.

As community engagement grew, we saw kids that had started naming their broccoli “Brad” and their radishes “Rawiri”.  Adults alike were sending the Fresh Friends endearing and flirty messages – a sign the personalities had taken on lives of their own.

The Fresh Friends bridged a gap which made it entertaining for adults and kids alike. It’s been effective because we’ve taken a campaign and played to the strengths of our social channels, focusing on community engagement and conversation on Facebook and stunning visually imagery for Instagram.

This campaign was all about building a community of raving fans and it achieved this in every way.