Have you ever noticed that vegetables, the champions of powering-up in real life nutrition, are being seriously undervalued in top video games played by millions of people globally?
No, we hadn’t either…but apparently it’s a “mega” issue, according to a new campaign by Knorr, which has been devised by a host of agencies including MullenLowe and The Invaders, backed by influencer partnerships with Ninja and other global streamers by ITB, with PR by Weber Shandwick and media by Mindshare.
The campaign is based on research which reveals just how much veg are lagging in the virtual world. In the game Fortnite, for instance, munching meat gives a +15HP boost while chomping on cabbage delivers just +10HP. In the pixelated world of Minecraft, meat will refill four hunger bars, compared to a measly two bars for a carrot. Even in the epic battlegrounds of World of Warcraft a big beef steak brings +552HP while a hearty bean stew lies in its wake, only patching up to the tune of +61HP. Told you it was “mega”.
Knorr is now calling on the gaming community worldwide to sign a petition to show their support for giving veg a boost in the virtual world and bring a new balance to gaming sustenance. The hope is this campaign will catch the attention of gaming publishers and spur them on to re-evaluate their games and give veg the supercharge they deserve. (Good luck with that.)
Knorr is striking up partnerships with the modding community to create veg-powered mods for gaming juggernauts Fortnite, Minecraft, Skyrim and GTA V.
In what was claimed to be “an epic unveiling”, Knorr presented a launch stream on Twitch with Ninja the world’s #1 biggest streamer. He brought the issue to his 19M Twitch followers, championing veg equality and playing some of the veg specific Fortnite mods.
Knorr global masterbrand director Niek de Rooij said: “We’re thrilled to team up with Ninja in highlighting this imbalance for veg in top games worldwide. We had no idea this was so widespread and bet that gaming publishers haven’t noticed either! This campaign is about getting veg super-charged as much in the virtual world as they are in the real world.”
MullenLowe executive creative director Calos Rodriguez added: “In helping Knorr make good food irresistible, we found that ‘veggies’ are often underrated versus other types of food. When we saw that this reality was also true in video games, we knew we had to do something about it. Modding video games was a cool and funny way to start solving the issue, call out the big game publishers for change, and connect with a younger audience.”
So, what is the consensus around the Decision Marketing office?
Well, who knew this was such a problem? More importantly, who cares? And, quite what this has all got to do with Knorr, the purveyor of flavoured dust, stock pots and powdered soup is anyone’s guess.
Obviously we have no idea which brain of Britain came up with idea that to attract a “younger audience” you have to woo gamers but, really, is this the best they can do?
And, do they really think young people are suddenly going to start buying Knorr’s products because veg is underrated in video games?
Delusional.
Decision Marketing Adometer: A ‘turnip’ 6 out of 10
