Totally different but familiar might be the best way to describe this year's Little Promotion from New World with the end of plastic collectibles, and the introduction of cute little seedling kits called Little Garden.
The promotion sees three teaser ads playing over the last few days and launches in full this week with television ads from Colenso BBDO, digital, social and a big in store presence thanks to retail agency .99.
With Little Garden, each little pot comes with one of 24 seed varieties complete with a soil tablet. You just have to add water. Once it's sprouting, you can actually just plant your whole Little Garden pot straight into a bigger pot or garden.
As in previous years, customers will get one free with every $40 spent.
Says Stephanie Pyne, national retail marketing manager for Foodstuffs: "We love how this idea is useful, educational, sustainable, and even edible. Getting kids and their families outside involved in gardening, growing vegetables and hopefully eating more
of them."
Little Garden's other major positive is that it is effectively zero-waste, explains Pyne: "All the materials are either compostable or recyclable. The pots are made of wood pulp and peat, the soil tablets are coconut husk, and the collector trays and packaging are recyclable. We're really looking forward to people of all ages participating in the promotion and growing their own Little Garden."
Says Steve Cochran, ECD, Colenso BBDO: "Little Garden has an inherent feel-good factor. We didn't need a clever idea for promoting it,we simply needed to capture that spirit and fun on film. I reckon this version of the Little series is going to be big, maybe the most loved one so far."
New World recently launched a new brand platform that centres on New Zealand climbing the UN's world happiness ranking. As a promotion, Little Garden will no doubt make a lot of kids, and probably quite a few adults, very happy.