The kids’ soft drink brand from Britvic has launched its first global campaign, "It’s my thing", which celebrates the diverse passions and personalities of children and the value of allowing them to be themselves.
Speaking to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10, Kirsty Hunter said that both parents and children felt "increasingly under pressure" to live up to certain expectations, and that representations of kids in advertising, which often conform to a narrow idea of "perfect" children, don’t help.
The campaign is aiming to tackle this by featuring real children in all their variety. "A lot of the thinking behind this came through time we spent with parents and kids as well," said Hunter.
"We’ve developed this jointly with parents, and been sensitive to ensuring we’ve developed something that doesn’t preach to them and inspires them as well."
The TV campaign, created by Iris, features eight children – and this will be supported by an Facebook campaign inviting parents to share video and pictures demonstrating their children’s creativity and personalities.
The brand will be giving away prizes for the best submission to help kids pursue their passions; Hunter suggested that this could result in anything from spending time with pro skaters for the skateboard-inclined, to visiting the Houses of Parliament for the perhaps small but real group of kids with a budding interest in politics.
The campaign comes at a time when challenging stereotypes is high on the agenda of the ad industry; insurance firm SunLife has just released its first TV campaign, which focuses on rejecting tired depictions of older people.
"We didn’t consciously go in to do that [challenge stereotypes] – we went in to represent real kids," said Hunter. "But if you’re going to really demonstrate real kids and real Britain, that will be a by-product."
The decision to roll out a global campaign reflects the growing footprint of the brand, said Hunter – last year it launched in Brazil, one of the world’s largest markets.
But it also made sense in terms of the message, she added: "What we’re really excited about is we’ve hit on a really common insight – kids' passions seem to be consistent across different markets."
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