Green Giant is launching its comeback advertising campaign with a very familiar face.
It has been six years since Green Giant’s last national advertising campaign. The frozen and canned vegetables brand, owned by B&G Foods, used to be a mainstay in TV commercials. Its mascot is the Jolly Green Giant — who’ve you’ve likely heard his trademark “ho, ho, ho” catchphrase come across your TV screen.
But despite some time away, Green Giant is back with their “That’s Giant” campaign in collaboration with its GYK Antler agency. The campaign features a new product called Dino Veggie Tots, the brand’s famous spokescharacter, and Tariq, the 8-year-old known as “Corn Kid.”
“A lot of thought went into the hierarchy of messaging for the work—each element serves equally important purposes,” Cristin Barth, creative director of GYK Antler, told Adweek. “We often see heavy-handed approaches to bringing heritage brands into the current zeitgeist, and in this particular case, we felt like less was more.”
The Jolly Green Giant is celebrating his 100th birthday in 2025, which was an important factor in the creation of the campaign. Barth said, “It wasn’t a question of if the giant would make an appearance. It was a question of how.”
Green Giant wanted to make sure the mascot “was leveraged in the right way,” according to Steven DeFrino, director of brand marketing, frozen and vegetables at Green Giant’s parent company B&G Food.
DeFrino told Adweek, “As we talk to consumers, we hear that they still gravitate to the giant. We wanted to do him justice and make sure he didn’t show up too cartoony.”
And how did casting Tariq happen exactly? Well, according to Barth, his “contagious, wholesome energy and genuine enthusiasm for veggies is impossible to ignore.”
Photo by Green Giant