The Challenge
We began by grounding ourselves in a fundamental cultural truth: in France, food is not just consumption, it is culture, education, and transmission. Mass retail plays a central role in shaping everyday eating habits, especially for families. As one of the country’s leading retailers, Auchan sits at the heart of millions of weekly routines, carrying a longstanding responsibility around food quality, accessibility, and public health. At the same time, we identified a growing health emergency. Childhood overweight and obesity rates in France are rising at an alarming pace, with one in five children affected (French Health Insurance, Laville Report 2023). While public health campaigns exist, they often rely on abstract nutritional guidance that fails to connect with children, and increasingly overwhelms parents. We also observed a cultural shift in children’s eating habits: diets dominated by ultra-processed, monochrome “beige foods” like pasta, fries, and nuggets. These options are convenient, familiar, and highly visible in retail environments. The issue wasn’t a lack of information, it was the absence of simple, engaging cues that children could easily understand and act on themselves. This led us to a clear creative challenge: how could we help a retailer like Auchan move beyond awareness and create a tangible, behavior-changing experience—right at the point where food choices are actually made?
The Solution
We designed ColorFood as a new kind of shopping experience, one that transforms healthy eating into an intuitive, lasting reflex for children. We brought this idea to life as a fully immersive in-store activation. Entire sections were redesigned at children’s height, with products reorganized by color and grouped into six custom bento boxes containing balanced portions. The result was an aisle transformed into an interactive playground, where children could physically build their own colorful meals; making better choices tangible, engaging, and fun. To ensure consistency and long-term impact, we extended this color-coding system into the permanent redesign of Auchan’s fresh market section, embedding the experience beyond the initial activation and into everyday shopping behavior. We then amplified the initiative across multiple touchpoints. We created a dedicated music video in collaboration with Aldebert—France’s most recognized family artist—supported by social media content targeting families and a national PR rollout timed with World Education Day and ahead of World Obesity Day. More than amplification, the song and video became core educational tools. By turning the ColorFood method into a catchy, memorable experience, we enabled children not only to understand it—but to remember and apply it in their everyday choices.
