KiwiCo: Making the Case for Screen-Free Play
"A screen-free gift has to earn its place at holiday volume — quiet doesn't sell itself."
The Challenge
Every kids' brand fights for attention during the holidays, and most of that fight happens on a screen. KiwiCo's whole premise runs the other direction — hands-on, screen-free, educational play. KiwiCo wanted to introduce itself to new demographics, during the pandemic, a moment that sparked new awareness around screen use. KiwiCo wanted to increase holiday sales, and that meant reaching parents, caregivers, and children where most holiday shopping decisions are made - online, without conceding its screen-free identity in the process. While holiday gift marketing leans on scale and spectacle; KiwiCo's advantage was the opposite — quiet, deliberate, real engagement: something a parent could feel good about putting under the tree, and a kid would be curious enough to ask about - this was our inroad. The campaign needed to imbue KiwiCo values without being preachy, and position quiet, intentional engagement as a strength worth choosing, not a compromise.
"Do you believe?"
The Strategy
The response was "Believe," a short film built to dramatize KiwiCo's core promise rather than advertise its product directly. The story follows a young girl and her older brother who use pieces from their own KiwiCo crates to build an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine engineered to catch definitive proof that Santa is real — showing exactly what KiwiCo inspires: curiosity, collaboration, and hands-on, screen free engineering. To reach parents, caregivers and kids, without compromising on its brand values the campaign released only part of the story across social and media channels, directing curious viewers to KiwiCo's website to discover 'what happened next...' — turning restraint and mystery, rather than spectacle, into consumer engagement. The strategy stayed anchored to KiwiCo's mission — a KiwiCo crate isn't a child's real present; what they make with it is.
"The night before..."
The Outcome
The campaign landed a genuine growth moment for the brand: education- and play-based kids' subscription boxes like KiwiCo saw year-over-year sales grow an average of 123% in 2020, accelerating to 129% growth in January 2021, and on as more and more families leaned into screen-free, at-home enrichment. "Believe" tapped directly into that momentum — reinforcing KiwiCo's core promise at the exact moment parents were most actively seeking hands-on alternatives to screen time, and was voted the best subscription box for kids in the 2021 readers' choice awards.
"Find out what happens next..."