While the British public enjoy the sunshine and make the most of the school summer holidays throughout August, most brands in the food and beverage space have already started to turn their attention to innovative marketing campaigns for Autumn and Winter.
This month, big names fought it out for consumer recognition, going head-to-head over breakfast bakeries, rosé wine and traditional Italian dishes. In a month packed to the brim with NPD and creative campaigns, let’s look at the food and drink industry’s highlights from August!
Battle of the breakfasts
This month, discounter Lidl boldly challenged the popular value bakery Greggs, as it pitched its bakery section against the well-known grab and go giant. Their simple yet effective print ad published in Metro read ‘Lidl bakery over Greggs all day’ and compared their 39p jam-filled donut with a 95p one from Greggs, who have recently had breakfast success of their own, overtaking McDonald’s as the UK’s favourite destination for the first meal of the day. The ad came as part of a broader marketing campaign around Lidl’s bakery offering, which has helped to establish its place as the fastest growing bricks & mortar supermarket for 12 months in a row.
Quaker Oats also weighed in on the battle of the breakfasts, skillfully jumping on a reactive opportunity in response to athletes complaining about the quality of the food they’d been offered during the Olympics. Team GB were promised Michelin star quality food, and instead found themselves with no choice but to ration their breakfast eggs due to low supply. In response, Quaker Oats drew on their trustworthy and reliable brand identity with another bit of simple yet effective creative advertising, stating ‘champions aren’t made on croissants’ in an effective print and OOH campaign.
Champions are not made on croissants 🥐🏅
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When we saw Team GB demanding porridge we made this with @QuakerOatsUK running across print & DOOH this week 🔥 pic.twitter.com/07j4Grygt0— Uncommon (@uncommon_studio) August 8, 2024
‘Screaming Devil’ vs Whispering Angel
Supermarket giant Asda’s new wine offering blew up this month. They announced their new Provencal rosé, and coined the new beverage ‘Screaming Devil’, a tongue-in-cheek reference to well-known competitor, Whispering Angel.
The shameless move gained a lot of attention on social media, with one Twitter user describing the not-so-subtle comparison to the established rosé brand as ‘violently iconic’, prompting approval from other users and attracting over 10,000 likes on that tweet alone.
ASDA’s take on Whispering Angel is, I’m afraid, violently iconic pic.twitter.com/IgoC2Hd277
— Bertie Darrell (@bertiedarrell) August 14, 2024
Of course, Asda isn’t the first supermarket copycat culprit. Ever since many of us watched the Colin vs Cuthbert debacle unfold between Aldi and Marks and Spencer on social media, it’s become a popular – and often successful – trend to blatantly copy competitor’s products; a strategy which we’ve seen an increasing number of food and drink brands use to their advantage.
Coca-Cola launches limited-edition flavours
Soft drink giant Coca-Cola has announced two brand-new limited edition flavours this month. They unveiled an apple flavour for Fanta as part of a Halloween marketing push, and also announced a collaboration with Oreo. This iconic pairing comes just in time for autumn, in the form of an unexpected but playful partnership which just makes sense. As part of the limited-edition campaign, which is set to roll out from September, the two F&B giants join forces as brand ‘besties’ to bring consumers a Coca-Cola Oreo Zero Sugar drink, along with the Oreo Coca-Cola sandwich cookie with popping candy.
Image credit: Coca-cola
Heinz take on the traditional
With a reputation for innovative NPD and tongue in cheek campaigns, it perhaps shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Heinz has announced the controversial ‘carbonara in a can’ as its latest product launch.
It’s time for fuss-free Carbonara with zero drama 💅
NEW Spaghetti Carbonara, available to buy NOW on Heinz to Home and wider stores from mid September 🤩
Tap below to secure yours now 👇 https://t.co/rbpryYhY4e pic.twitter.com/qngTw1NqFQ
— Heinz (@HeinzUK) August 29, 2024
Naturally, this tinned take on a much-loved delicacy prompted a mixture of amusement and outcry on social media. One Twitter user joked ‘An Italian just died’, with another stating ‘No, simply no’.
Alessandro Pipero, Michelin star chef and “carbonara king”, is reported to have compared the brand’s £2 supermarket take on the Italian classic to ‘cat food’ from a tin. However, Heinz insist that this latest product offering is ‘fail-proof’ and an easy alternative to the traditional Italian dish. And with an impressive shelf life and price that’s not to be sniffed at, all is not lost, and only time will tell whether consumers will be won over by the brand’s latest creative endeavour.
Interested in exploring how your brand can harness the top food and drink trends? Connect with us at hello@hatch.group
