The Campaign
Potandon Produce, the exclusive North American licensee of the Green Giant™ Fresh brand for potatoes and onions, has activated a large-scale digital billboard in Times Square that will run through October 31 under the tagline "Live the Giant Life." The campaign represents a deliberate push to translate one of the food industry's highest brand-recognition scores into incremental retail velocity for two commodity produce categories.
The creative spans two connected digital displays engineered for the curved geometry of Times Square's screen architecture. The animation shows the Green Giant striding across the screens, each footfall triggering a visual shockwave before an assortment of fresh potatoes and onions fills the frame. The dual-screen format is designed to create the perception of the character physically moving through the space — a production choice that distinguishes the activation from standard out-of-home placements.
Why Retail Partners Are the Real Audience
While Times Square draws an estimated 50 million annual visitors, the campaign's strategic audience is grocery and mass-market retail buyers. "For our retail partners, Green Giant Fresh potatoes and onions represent the combination of an iconic national brand and the quality, consistency, and category expertise behind Potandon Produce," said JP Sureus, Head of Sales at Potandon Produce. The company is framing the billboard less as a consumer-awareness play and more as a proof point of category investment — a signal to buyers that the brand is willing to commit marketing dollars to lift the entire fresh potato and onion shelf set.
Green Giant's consumer recognition rate of more than 90% is the commercial logic underpinning that argument. Few fresh produce labels carry that kind of unaided awareness, and Potandon is betting that attaching a licensed brand to commodity items will justify premium shelf placement and support incremental promotional programs at retail.
Extending the Reach
The Times Square placement will be amplified through social media, original video content, and public relations for the duration of the campaign. Shoppers and trade visitors can share content by tagging @greengiantfreshpo on Instagram, a mechanic designed to extend the New York City footprint into broader digital channels. John Rota, Chief Marketing Officer of Potandon Produce, described the screens' physical scale as central to the execution: "The architecture of the screens amplifies his enormous footsteps and dramatic descent, culminating in an explosion of fresh potatoes and onions. It's big, fun and memorable."
The activation fits a broader pattern in the fresh produce sector, where branded programs — from premium apple clubs to licensed vegetable lines — have gained traction as retailers seek differentiation in a category historically driven by price and shelf proximity. For Potandon, which operates a nationwide network of growers and packing facilities, the campaign also functions as a grower-relations tool, with CEO Des Hague explicitly citing the company's growing community as part of the message the billboard is meant to carry.
Industry observers tracking branded produce licensing trends and out-of-home marketing in grocery will note that campaigns of this scale remain rare in the fresh category, where marketing budgets more commonly flow toward in-store point-of-sale and digital couponing. Potandon's Times Square bet suggests the company sees enough headroom in brand equity to justify the investment ahead of the fall and holiday cooking season — historically the strongest selling period for potatoes and onions at U.S. retail.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
