To celebrate the return of spring and remind New Zealanders where freshness truly starts, we opened the world’s first supermarket for bees for Woolworths New Zealand, while educating families about the importance of our pollinators via an immersive educational experience.
THE CHALLENGE
Spring is when flora and fauna come back to life. Leaves grow back, flowers bloom, and fruit and veggies flourish. But all of that spring goodness in the garden – and supermarket – relies on bees. Over the last 75 years the global bee population has decreased by 50%, yet around 70% of crops eaten by humans rely on pollination by bees.
So, this spring Woolworths opened the world’s first supermarket for bees to bring awareness to these important pollinators.
THE SOLUTION
The Woolworths for Bees store was designed to cater to the group’s first ever non-human target market, stocking aisles of fresh flowers packed with the pollen and nectar bees love.
Stock was carefully selected in consultation with professional beekeepers, botany experts, and nurseries to cater to the needs of bees. The store layout was been designed with bees in mind, with a ‘spring specials’ section stocking spring flowering plants bees love, and ‘locally grown’ New Zealand natives that bees love such as Mānuka & Kōwhai. Woolworths for Bees even featured an ‘ultraviolet aisle’ stocked with all the purple and blue flowers that are top of bees shopping lists (or at least, are their favourite colour on the spectrum).
Woolworths for Bees popped up at Ambury Farm over the first half of the 2024 spring school holidays. While designed as a one-stop shopping destination for bees, Woolworths for Bees also offered an interactive and educational experience for humans. Human visitors could learn about bees via supermarket signage and an on-site beekeeper, complete educational challenges, and even leave with some treats to enjoy at home, and seeds to grow their own bee-friendly garden.
And after the buzz ended? The bees returned to their home north of Auckland, all shelving and interactive elements were reused by Ambury Farm and Sustainable Schools for educational purposes. Community groups, schools and gardening enthusiasts were invited to take the flowers home to re-plant in their own gardens.
OUTCOME
The Woolworths for Bees activation was a hit with bees and families alike –
- 6,300+ visitors, and over 700 attendees per day
- Average dwell time of 15-20 minutes
- 2,200 bookable tickets sold out
- 502,000+ views via content creators, with 88% of influencer invited organically posting content. This layer of the campaign delivered a total earned media value of approx. $18,500, or a 786% ROI.
Research also showed Woolworths for Bees directly shifted attendees perceptions of the brand –
- +71% ‘Woolworths is the market leader in fresh’
- +170% ‘Woolworths cares for the environment’
- +53% ‘Woolworths is good for New Zealand’
AWARDS
- 2x Bronze – Axis Awards
- 1x Bronze – Spikes Asia
