THE HELPING PLATE

Silver Eurobest Award

Case Film

Presentation Image

TitleTHE HELPING PLATE
BrandHAK
Product/ServiceFOOD
Category F01. Consumer Products
Entrant DDB UNLIMITED Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Idea Creation DDB UNLIMITED Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
PR CREATIVE VENUE Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
PR 2 HAPPYLIFE PR Alphen aan den Rijn, THE NETHERLANDS
Production WAARMAKERS STUDIO Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Production 2 ROYAL GOEDEWAAGEN Nieuw-Buinen, THE NETHERLANDS
Credits
Name Company Position
Maarten Vrouwes DDB Unlimited Creative Director
Friso Ludenhoff DDB Unlimited Creative Director
Luuk Simonse DDB Unlimited Concept creator/art director
Leendert-Jan de Ronde DDB Unlimited Concept creator/Copywriter
Dick van der Lecq DDB Unlimited CEO
Lisette Timmer DDB Unlimited Account Director
Moniek van de Rijt DDB Unlimited Producer
Joris Groot DDB Unlimited Designer
Tatiana Consoli DDB Unlimited Designer
Byron van den Eng DDB Unlimited DOP & editor
Lars Noback DDB Unlimited Editor
Tom Stumpel DDB Unlimited Director/DOP
Betina Piqueras Fiszman Wageningen University & research Associate Professor, Wageningen University & Research (WUR)
Robbie Postma Food x creativity Food stylist
Maarten Heijltjes Waarmakers Studio Product Designer
Simon Akkaya Waarmakers Studio Product designer
Rolina de Haan Royal Goedewaagen Product producer
Rens Korevaar Earforce Sound & Music
Tymen Geurts Earforce Sound & Music
Reinder van Zalk Earforce Sound and music
Philip Huis in 't Veld Philip Post production Post production
Frank Witte Creative Venue PR PR
Jacqueline Buijs HappyLife PR PR
Jessica Hartley PR PR
Egotribe Egotribe Egotibe Website building
Nicole Freid HAK Head of marketing & innovation
Yolanda van Grootel HAK Brand communication manager

Background

Most people in the Netherlands structurally eat too little vegetables. Big government led advertising campaigns with huge budgets were not able to change this behavior. HAK, being is one of the biggest vegetable brands in Western Europe, wants to change this. It brief was to to come up with new innovative ways to tackle this issue, because traditional advertising had failed in the last couple of decades to generate change. This is a big step for a company which is perceived by 90% of The Netherlands as being traditional. Budget therefore was limited, 200k all-in for development, production and promotion.

Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)

HAK’s mission statement is to ‘help people eat more vegetables at as many moments at the day as possible’. They don’t want this just to be a statement. HAK wants to put its money where its mouth is. And actively help people to eat more veggies. Data showed this is a problem that starts early in life, as only a handful of children eat the recommended daily allowance of greens. The period between ages 4 and 8 years is crucial: that’s when you lay the foundation for your eating pattern. That’s why we focused on children in this age group and their parents. We teamed up with the world’s leading food university: Wageningen University & Research. And designed The Helping Plate: An intelligent plate designed around smart scientific nudges, to help children (and their parents) to eat more vegetables more easily. Based on smart scientific nudges.

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

The Helping Plate was designed based on the following scientific data: Mirroring A child’s brain mirrors and copies its parents’ behaviour, so the plate is round and ceramic – just like their parents’ plates. More = more By making the plate larger, the portion seems smaller. This is called the Delboeuf illusion, and lets the brain perceive the meal as more doable. Delboeuf illusion An indentation lets you secretly serve more vegetables. As there is more, a child will automatically also eat more. Closer is better This indentation was designed to be placed close to the child, as food that is closer ends up in your belly sooner. Tastier by colour The white surface behind the vegetables lets our brains experience them as looking tastier. To make the veggies look more appetising than the rest of the meal, from there the plate gradually becomes darker.

List the results (20% of vote)

The plate immediately became an official bestseller at the biggest Dutch department store, the initial run sold out within hours. We are now at the third run, and a total of 34,000 plates. It benefited the HAK brand massively. It broke with the traditional image they had: +14% of the target audience now find the brand modern/contemporary. It boosted the preference for the HAK brand with +11%. And on top of that +10% are willing the pay more for HAK compared to other brands. The plate was front page news in The Netherlands. Free publicity reached 3,82 million, in a country which inhabits only 1,9 million families with kids. Becoming food for thought on the importance of vegetables and how design can help us eat healthier. This not only got people to think about their daily vegetable intake. But actually helped families eating more vegetables on a daily basis.