The background and objectives of your campaign:

Aussie Kids are exposed 2,800 junk food ads on the way to and from school every year.[1] That’s 15 ads for junk food every single trip.

We at Zespri wanted to do something about that, because it’s our belief that the over-commercialisation of processed foods has led to an alarming rise in their consumption, damaging our health and the future generations’ health.

To take on the junk food juggernaut, we’d have to provide an alternative route to daily diets. Literally.

Introducing Healthier Ways, a turn-by-turn navigation map tool that helped parents avoid junk food advertising and restaurants on the way to and from school. Healthier Ways used real-time data to provide the fastest possible route to the user’s destination, diverting drivers away from junk food advertising, and toward healthy Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit advertising and retailers.

Users also had the option to pass our healthy kiwifruit advertising, and even Zespri Kiwifruit retailers in the area, to collect a delicious, healthy kiwifruit snack instead of fast food.

The results you achieved:

The app was a complete success, launching in Western Sydney, the home to the highest density of junk food advertising in Australia. More than 1600 people used the app on a daily basis, helping to avoid thousands of junk food ads and restaurants on the way to and from school.

Healthier Ways boosted brand image by 209% and consideration by 64%. The vast majority (87%) of shoppers welcomed the initiative, and 89% said they would purchase Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit in the future as a result.[2] Central to this were the 36 million impressions, and $300,000 in free media, the campaign earned.[3]

Most importantly, however, the campaign highlighted the severity of junk food advertising in Australia, and sparked a much larger conversation around the impact junk food exposure has on young children. New junk food advertising regulations are now being discussed in various state parliaments, with the hope of limiting exposure of outdoor junk food advertising near schools.

The approach and key activities you implemented:

Healthier Ways is an online brand experience that people used in the real world. It is an online navigation tool that parents could use on their way to and from dropping their children at school, to help avoid exposure to junk food.

The brand promoted the web app across a number of different channels, including OOH and social, while the experience itself directed users to Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit retailers, and even past a pop-up Zespri Drive-thru a live activation where people could swing past and grab a healthy Kiwifruit, instead of a junk food snack.

Healthier Ways used a comprehensive set of live data, from live junk food outdoor advertising location placements (powered by programmatic media), live junk food retailers (found via Google Maps), Zespri retailers (found within our own supplier database), real-time traffic and navigational data (using MapBox) and our own Zespri advertising, programmed to provide the user with the fastest route possible on our own application. The experience combined these data sets (seen in the graphic on the award board) to help the user avoid junk food advertising and restaurants and get to their destination with ease.

[1] Korina J Richmond, Wendy L Watson, Clare Hughes, Bridget Kelly, ‘Children’s trips to school dominated by unhealthy food advertising in Sydney, Australia’, Public Health Research & Practice, Sax Institute, March 2020.

[2] NielsenIQ, Total Fruit and Kiwifruit, 2024 Season Review, December 2024.

[3] DCPR, earned media review, 2024.