Every year on March 20th, the first day of spring, people around the world celebrate the beloved and iconic caterpillar from Eric Carle’s classic book. This year’s celebration included a variety of events and partnerships.
As the brand licensing agency for The World of Eric Carle, JLG works in conjunction with Penguin Young Readers to help create brand licensing partnerships that celebrate The Very Hungry Caterpillar on March 20th and all year long.
To help celebrate the occasion, Penguin Young Readers created a digital picnic party kit that included a coloring card activity, cupcake recipe and topper, a Caterpillar headwrap activity, photo booth props as well as a decorative bunting activity. Several partners helped share and promote the kit.
Some of the exciting retail and brand partnerships and events included:
A weeklong partnership between Penguin Young Readers and Gymboree Play & Music, which included a reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in all classes along with co-branded social media posts and newsletters.
Barnes and Noble helped promote co-branded picnic activities across their social media channels. Additionally, the Barnes & Noble Union Square location in New York City featured a projection of the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Town & Country Living offered 15% off all Eric Carle rugs.
Zulily hosted a Very Hungry Caterpillar flash sale from March 20-22.
Little Shop Pins hosted a World of Eric Carle giveaway along with 20% off a bundle of World of Eric Carle products.
Out of Print promoted the celebration via their newsletter, social media channels and website.
StoryToys created an in-app event that was promoted on the Apple App store and also gave away the book Who Is Here to all of their customers.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Live Show has returned to the Oregon Children's Theatre in Portland, Oregon.
To help further amplify the celebration, Penguin Young Readers launched an influencer campaign with popular parenting content creators who shared fun activations on both Instagram and TikTok. Participating influencers included @milandthefam (140.6K followers) and @kaelahe_ (62.5K followers). Popular pregnancy and parenting blog The Baby Chick also launched a fun sweepstakes counting down to Very Hungry Caterpillar Day.
To help teachers and schools celebrate Very Hungry Caterpillar Day, Penguin Young Readers created a spring scavenger hunt, which was sent to more than 130,000 teachers and librarians.
