Unboxing hunger: Showing Canadian parents what food insecurity really looks like.
Did you know that 149 million children worldwide suffer from malnutrition every year? Despite the scale of this crisis, most Canadians remain unaware of its growing severity. Save the Children Canada set out to change that with a bold, attention-grabbing campaign designed to make people take notice.
During the 2024 back-to-school season, Save the Children Canada launched the Unboxing Hunger campaign, using a simple yet powerful symbol: a child’s lunchbox. While many Canadian children’s lunchboxes are filled with nutritious meals and snacks, millions of kids around the world face a starkly different reality. This campaign brought that reality to life, showing what a ‘typical’ meal looks like for children struggling with hunger globally.
Beyond raising awareness of the crisis, Save the Children Canada used this opportunity to highlight how their work is making a tangible difference in the lives of children facing malnutrition.
The Campaign:
The Unboxing Hunger campaign was a social media-led initiative designed to reach Canadian families during the back-to-school season and shed light on the harsh realities of child hunger.
At the heart of the campaign was the Child Hunger Lunch Box—a physical kit that revealed what children in crisis often have to eat, alongside life-saving solutions provided by Save the Children Canada. Each lunch box contained items like dried bitter leaves, contaminated dirty water, rationed rice, Plumpy’Nut nutrition bars, and water purification tablets—offering a stark contrast to the meals many Canadian families take for granted.
To reach young Canadian parents, Save the Children used multiple tactics that fit the target’s social media habits. This included enlisting the help of Canadian food and lifestyle influencers, including Jillian Harris, Roger Mooking, and Taneisha Morris, who unboxed a real Child Hunger Lunch Box for their followers, We also targeted parents on Pinterest and Instagram who were looking for lunch ideas for their own children.
The various tactics all lead to a campaign landing page where visitors could open the Child Hunger Lunch Box for themselves – in a virtual format – to take a closer look at the items and learn more about the organization’s role in fighting child hunger.
The Impact:
With a small media budget and a short time in market, the social media campaign and strategy successfully amplified awareness on a national scale.
Ultimately, the campaign was a resounding success, not only elevating Save The Children's presence in Canada but also drivinghttps://vimeo.com/1056568239 critical awareness around hunger.
