Innocent Drinks is making its kids offer a top priority as it strives to restore ailing smoothie sales to growth.

The company is next week launching its first TV ad aimed directly at kids as part of an attempt to raise its current 48% consumer awareness and 4% household penetration.

"There is still so much to go for in the kids market, but we hadn't really communicated on this range until now," said Innocent marketing director Thomas Delabriere. "We launched the offer four years ago but many people still don't know about it. With 4% penetration, we think we have a great opportunity to get more people in."

The smoothie maker's kids business is currently worth £20.2m down by 14% in the year to September [Nielsen]. However, sales in the past quarter rose 17%.

The recent growth is also reflected in Innocent's overall smoothie sales, which slumped 24% to £86m in the past 12 months but have subsequently grown by 10% over the past three months.

The TV advert, which breaks on 10 October on kids channels including CITV and Nickelodeon, will coincide with an in-pack promotion offering collectable alphabet magnets. A kids activity website will run alongside the promotion, urging youngsters to go online to contribute to stories inspired by the magnet designs. A major sampling promotion will target mums across the main multiples from later this month.

"We believe we can increase our rate of sale by 10%-15% in the next few months and increase consumer awareness by a third," added Delabriere.