Unilever's Knorr celebrates ‘eativists’ in global campaign by IPG agencies

Unilever food brand Knorr has launched a global campaign encouraging people to change the world by changing what’s on their plates.

“Eat for good”, created by an Interpublic team of agencies including MullenLowe Group, Golin, R/GA and ITB, targets so-called “eativists” – people who believe food can be a force for change and consciously choose food that is good for themselves and the planet.

Coinciding with World Eat for Good Day today (Friday), the campaign asks viewers to swap one ingredient in their routine meals for a nutritious food that is better for the planet.

It launches with a film, called “Eativists”, that features real people who are passionate about making an impact on the world through the food they eat.

It was created by Gavin Nastili and Tarik Bedevi, and directed by Toby Dye through RSA Films.

Knorr has also released a new recipe platform, created by R/GA, that converts meals into alternative recipes that are good for the planet and health. It promotes the inclusion of “Future 50 Foods” – a collection of plant-based foods that can boost the nutritional value of meals while reducing the environmental impact of food supplies – into day-to-day meal planning.

As part of the campaign, the character Mr Potato Head will change his outfit and dress up as a Cilembu sweet potato to show people how simple it is to make one ingredient swap that is better for the environment.

Influencer activity, developed by ITB, will send influencers “Plates of hope” – specially designed plates made from degraded soil from farms that are no longer fertile due to poor farming practices.

April Redmond, global brand vice-president at Knorr, said: “We developed the campaign to help people to realise that what they eat has the power to change the world for the better. World Eat for Good Day is a significant next step in our mission to reinvent food for
humanity.

"Our ambition is to make eating a wider variety of foods that are better for us and the planet, taste great and easy to cook up. We aim to get food that is good for people and the planet on seven billion plates by 2025.

"Together with partners such as Mr Potato Head, WWF UK, the Chefs’ Manifesto Network, GRO Intelligence, ReNature and influencers, we are proud to be building a community around this ambition for the health of people and the planet.”

In 2019, Unilever chief executive Alan Jope said the FMCG company would no longer maintain working relationships with individual agencies, but instead operate holding company-wide arrangements. As well as IPG, Unilever works extensively with WPP and Omnicom. 

As well as being one of the world's biggest food brands, Knorr is "one of the most complex, with more than 15,000 SKUs [stock keeping units] and multiple different lead products across 70+ markets", Alan Bell, IPG Team Knorr global business lead, said.

“To create a new brand communications idea that seamlessly connects our purpose to what we do and what we say, we harnessed the strategic and creative skills of our IPG agencies around the world and across disciplines.

"And we treated the client as one of us, iterating on an almost daily basis. Ironically, having all our teams working remotely actually aided this process, as the usual barriers of geography and different agency processes disappeared thanks to the miracle of technology.”