With food inflation running at around 4.5% in the UK, frozen food steps up as a less pricey alternative to the fresh food aisles, and Birds Eye is here to remind us that it’s often a healthy option too.
The campaign, by Havas London, gets the message across in a spirited way with the new “Life well fed” line. Somehow it manages to label fish fingers as “omega-filled”, chicken nuggets as “protein-packed perfection”, and frozen peas as “vitamin-rich miracles” without getting preachy. It comes with an uplifting soundtrack, which they call a “master track,” that will feature on all Birds Eye campaigns going forward.
Claire Sutton, marketing director at Birds Eye UK & Ireland said, “This campaign is our creative reset. ‘That’s a Recipe for a Life Well Fed’ isn’t just a tagline, it’s a manifesto for modern mealtimes. We’ve taken the everyday and made it epic, reframing frozen food from a backup fix to a first-choice source of goodness. With Havas, we’ve built a platform that’s bold, warm, and unapologetically proud of the freezer aisle.”
Vicki Maguire, CCO at Havas London, said: “This campaign flips the script on fresh v frozen by celebrating what really happens around the dinner table – the laughter, the chaos, the comfort. The fight for the last fish finger or chicken dipper. We wanted to show that frozen food can be just as joyful, just as meaningful, and just as central to modern family life as anything else that happens in the home.”
Havas won the Birds Eye pan-European business, along with other brands from parent company Nomad Foods – including Findus, Iglo and Aunt Bessie’s – at the end of last year.
The mock-heroic tone provides a good, tongue-in-cheek vehicle for celebrating the small wins in everyday life, and this ability to connect with consumers should stand Havas in good stead for working with Arla Foods’ Anchor Butter, which it just won from House 337.
MAA creative scale: 7
