Creativity has been at the heart of Bombay Sapphire for over 30 years, championing creatives and supporting emerging artists all over the world. Its own distillery in Laverstoke is an architectural masterpiece created by one of the most imaginative architects, Thomas Heatherwick. The entire brand strategy is built around inspiring and enabling creativity in everyone. In the year that turned out to be devastating for the creative community, Bombay Sapphire wanted to show their support and demonstrate their belief that creativity is an essential part of being human, making us feel fulfilled and happy.

Creativity had been jeopardised in the wake of Covid. Galleries closed as they were not deemed ‘essential’, negatively impacting creative communities. But essential shops were allowed to open. So Bombay Sapphire turned The Design Museum into a supermarket, to reopen it despite pandemic restrictions. We collaborated with 10 emerging artists to turn essential items into artworks – from rice to loo roll, Bombay Sapphire gin, to fruit and veg. All at supermarket prices, making art accessible to all. Giving people their fix of creativity, and supporting artists, during the weekly shop. And all proceeds from sales go towards supporting artists, through the Design Museum’s new Emerging Artists’ Access Fund, supported by Bombay Sapphire – a ‘pay it forward’ scheme that gives up and coming artists and designers free access to Design Museum exhibitions, talks and events, including networking and mentoring events.

To generate as much coverage as possible, we reopened one of the world’s most loved galleries, The Design Museum, which had lost 92% of its income stream. It was the only public gallery in the UK allowed to open at that time, giving people access to much needed creativity. We produced 1200 of each essential item to stock our supermarket. Famed artist and designer Camille Walala, Tim Marlow, Director and Chief Executive of the Design Museum and a collective of 10 brilliant artists all helped us to spread the message the ‘Creativity is Essential’. We began soft-selling to media four weeks before opening to secure longer form features and interviews. The coverage started with an exclusive in the Guardian five days before launch and continued across opening week with pieces in The Times, Telegraph, Evening Standard, Sky News, BBC News, Good Morning Britain and CNN among others.

SUPERMARKET was open for 5 days, with 1200 of each limited essential item stocking the shelves of our supermarket ( toilet paper sold out within 4 hours!) – with products and prints of the artworks also available to buy online. Famed artist and designer Camille Walala brought her inimitable visual style to the store’s spatial design – bringing art and shopping together in a riot of bold patterns and bright colours.

The essential items were designed by a collective of 10 brilliant emerging artists from all over the world: Joey Yu, Charlotte Edey, Kentaro Okawara, Katherine Plumb, Amy Worrall, Holly Warburton, Jess Warby, Michaela Yearwood-Dan and Isadora Lima. Each artist brought their unique style to the project, to turn the likes of toilet paper and bread into artworks –– all at supermarket prices, so everyone could take home a piece of art during their weekly shop.

Note: No proceeds went to Bombay Sapphire and all went to the creative community.

All cost undertaken by Bombay Sapphire. Artists paid a fee for their work.

Visits & Money Raised

Total visitors in 5 days: 25,867 shoppers (2879 on site and 22988 online)

Total revenue raised for emerging artists fund: £105,000 (sold out all essential items online in under 8 hours)

Number of emerging artists supported - 10,000

Social Metrics

84.01mn total impressions

29.09mn total reach

94% positive sentiment on IG

PR Coverage

Total reach: 31,811,160

Number 1 Share of Voice in UK and Western Europe

Total domestic pieces: 59