Veg Power Beats Junk Food Marketers at Their Own Game
How a nonprofit made vegetables exciting by flipping the script entirely — and what every regional business owner can steal from their playbook.
"Vegetables are disgusting!"
Kids forever have dodged eating vegetables. Resorting to convoluted measures, parents cajole, bribe and slyly disguise them, often to no avail. The industry, despite valiant efforts, has struggled to move the needle on overall produce consumption, let alone conquer most children's downright disdain for vegetables.
Veg Power — the nonprofit alliance created to increase vegetable consumption — completely upends decades of produce marketing paradigms, impishly doubling down to make vegetables evil foes. No worries, kids are in on the ruse.
Instead of telling kids vegetables are good for them — which never works — they made vegetables the enemy to be defeated. And kids went from avoiding them to hunting them.
But if you talk to children about their food choices, the perception of fun is the primary driver.
That's why McDonald's is so successful.
"We love kids fooling around with real veg in its pure natural form. They can pick up broccoli and say it is a broccoli monster, or it's a broccoli tree or it's just a little broccoli floret toy, it's fun and then they eat it, crunchy, tasty and super fresh, instead of processed food."
Children have amazing imaginations and can find fantasy inside even the simplest things. Veg Power understood this. They didn't try to fix a perception problem with facts — they used the same emotional, imaginative language that junk food had used for decades, and simply pointed it at broccoli.
"This isn't about cooking techniques. This is about breaking down all those barriers, and creating this environment of fun and encouragement."
Marketing Doesn't Sell Products. It Sells a State of Mind
Whilst most TV advertising looks like it is selling food, it actually sells a state of mind. If you've seen advertisements for Coca-Cola or Snickers or any of these types of products, they don't expect you to say "I must have it now and go immediately to the supermarket and buy one."
What they do is create an emotional feeling — one that refreshes and resurfaces later when you're standing in a 24/7 store, a service station, or a supermarket aisle. The decision was already made. It was made when you watched the ad.
Veg Power understood this completely. They didn't try to create a rational argument for why broccoli is nutritious. They created an emotional narrative — one where kids are the heroes and vegetables are the villains to be conquered. And children went along with it enthusiastically, because it was fun, not because they were told it was good for them.
Most regional businesses try to sell their products or services with facts and features. But your customers don't buy facts — they buy feelings, stories, and the sense that choosing you is the right and exciting decision.
What emotional story is your marketing telling? If you can't answer that clearly, your marketing is leaving money on the table.
What This Means for Your Business
Veg Power's success isn't a fluke — it's a masterclass in understanding your audience so completely that you can flip conventional thinking on its head and still win. Here are the three principles at the heart of their campaign that translate directly to any regional business.
Meet Your Audience Where They Already Are
Kids don't want vegetables. Instead of arguing against that, Veg Power leaned into it. What does your customer already believe — and how can your marketing work with that belief rather than against it?
Emotion Beats Information Every Time
No amount of nutritional data convinced kids to eat broccoli. A story about defeating a monster did. What story is your business telling — and does it make your customer feel something?
The Perception of Fun Drives Decisions
This isn't just true for children. Adults are equally driven by emotion, belonging, and story. Your marketing should make people feel something about choosing your business.
The best marketing doesn't look like marketing. It looks like something people want to engage with. Veg Power made children want to chase vegetables.
The question is: What could make your customers want to chase you?
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