The legal battle between Aldi and M&S – dubbed The Caterpillar Wars – was a viral sensation in 2021, creating the #FreeCuthbert movement and gripping the UK for weeks. The campaign took the battle from the high court into the court of popular opinion, trending #1 on Twitter for days as we used social to rally support for Aldi and poke fun at M&S. #FreeCuthbert won the hearts, minds and mouths of the British public and the high court spat was settled amicably, with one condition – Cuthbert was to be temporary taken off Aldi shelves to undergo a makeover.

Fast-forward 18 months, Cuthbert’s got a fresh new (totally legal) look. And it’s time for him to hit the shelves again and give his new fanbase what they want. We needed an idea to make him a sell-out success and tap into the fame he’s created over the last year.

The strategy was simple, we needed to shift as many £4.99 Caterpillar cakes as we could. Cuthbert was a social phenomenon in 2021, however due to the supermarket having to pull the much-loved caterpillar off its shelves as he had a nip and tuck, the brand couldn’t commercially capitalise off its success. Fast forward 18 months, we needed to re-engage the audience – both from a reach and engagement perspective – to fall back in love with our six-legged chocolate caterpillar and rejuvenate the now very large Cuthbert fan base (the 2021 campaign drove over 400 million impressions). Enough to want to go to an Aldi store and show their support by biting his delicious head off (the best bit).Bringing together OOH and social allowed us to create talkability and mass fame, which we knew would grab the attention of the National press and get the whole nation talking again.

The campaign brought together owned and paid channels to allow Aldi to create fame and talkability with its community on social media and earned media. It launched with a Party Summons to brands and journalists – taking inspiration from previous Court Summons during #FreeCuthbert. It invited them to a party on Aldi’s Twitter and included a Cuthbert Cake and party paraphernalia. This created a buzz on social media before the release and started to re-engage the superfans. Then we got our ad vans on the road – covering over 17 M&S locations in a day. Creating talkability in the streets as well as social, we poked at our rival in a way that only Aldi could, with six different cheeky messages appearing in rotation. This led to the finale, a big Twitter party with Aldi’s brand friends and journalists, harking back to #FreeCuthbert and winning over public opinion once more.

We needed to make sure that Cuthbert was both a sell-out success commercially but also created talkability and fame around the brand, recreating the success of #FreeCuthbert.

Social Media Results:

a. Total Reach: 12,145,699

b. Total Engagement: 701,777

c. Follower Growth: 34,000 new followers

d. Total media Spend: £5,055

Along with the great results on social media and the plethora of media coverage (over 100+ pieces), we also managed to move the brands YouGov Brand Index scores from 38.1 to 58.8 points.

And the cherry on top of the cake? Cuthbert was a sell-out success!