'Eat Them To Defeat Them’ from Adam&EveDDB returns for ITV and Veg Power

An army of warrior kids vows to vanquish a legion of evil vegetables in the third major push of ITV and Veg Power’s ‘Eat Them To Defeat Them’ campaign by Adam&EveDDB, supported by a media alliance between ITV, Channel 4, Sky and STV, and funded by 10 food and retail brands.

The cackles, grunts and groans of the evil attacking vegetables have been voiced by tcelebrities including Emma Thompson, Amanda Holden, Jamie Oliver, Giovanna Fletcher, Stephen Mulhern and Ranvir Singh in a bid to build on previous successes in getting children to eat more vegetables

Called ‘Prepare for Battle’, the campaign carries on the strategy of positioning vegetables as an enemy for children to defeat.

The 60-second spot starts with the news that evil veg are back. We then see kids from across Britain pledging to make their foes ‘wish they were never grown’. In a montage, the kids undertake intense training using everyday kitchen utensils, eventually squaring up against the veg on the battlefield. The first shot is fired, in the form of a fork piercing a terrifying tomato, before all hell breaks loose. As the army charges forth, one of the warriors turns to camera, demanding of her fellow children: “Will you just sit there? Or are you with us?”

The campaign is rolling out into 1,900 primary schools with veg tasting sessions, posters, teaching aids and games, and into the homes as 500,000 children will be given a vegetable reward chart and sticker pack, alongside a puzzle book co-created and funded by Public Health England’s Change4Life campaign.

The campaign is funded by 10 major food retailers and brands - Aldi, Asda, Birds Eye, Co-op, Lidl, Total Produce, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. Essence has planned the off-air media for the campaign, securing pro-bono contributions from advertising and media partners, including Pearl and Dean, News UK, Mail Metro Media, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Verizon, Spotify, Mail Online, Mumsnet, LadBible, Snapchat, Twitter, Acast, JCDecaux, First News, Clear Channel and Ocean Outdoor.

Mat Goff, joint chief executive officer at Adam&EveDDB, said: “This campaign is important, increasingly urgent, and it works. It’s good to see an ever-growing coalition of partners getting involved and to know that together we are helping to get more veg on more forks and in more mouths.”