Situation: On the morning of 15th April 2021, Marks and Spencer’s launched legal action against Aldi over a claim that it infringed a trademark on their Colin the Caterpillar Cake. Papers filed at the High Court stated that the design of Aldi’s Cuthbert the Caterpillar was too close a resemblance to their much-loved Colin. Despite the other supermarkets all having their own caterpillar creations, Marks & Spencer’s stated that it wanted to ‘protect Colin’s reputation’ and that it was Cuthbert who was ‘riding on the coattails’ of their caterpillar’s success. Cuthbert was, they alleged, the copy-caterpillar.

Brief: How do we respond to the legal action by M&S in a way that reflects Aldi’s brand, character and tone?

Objectives: Win public opinion. Gain public support.

While M&S wanted to win in the High Court, we wanted to win in the court of public opinion. We had to take early control of the narrative, turning this from ‘Aldi Vs M&S’ to ‘Aldi and The People Vs M&S’.

Very quickly we decided, rather than retreat and be quiet, we would ramp the conversion up. So, on the same day we first heard that M&S was starting legal action against us – we created what was to become Aldi’s biggest ever news story. The #FreeCuthbert movement began fighting back.

Over the next 48 hours, #FreeCuthbert turned from a single tweet into an agile, super-responsive social campaign. And it all played out in the best place possible – on peoples’ phones.

Our strategy was simple: get the public on our side. After all, for its perplexing technicalities and legal ramifications, this was a silly squabble over a children’s chocolate cake. If we thought it was ridiculous, maybe the public would, too?

Our goal was to secure the goodwill of the public, we could only do that by being nimble, shrewd and humorous on social. Speak where we could be loudest. It worked. Almost instantly, #FreeCuthbert was on the news, being debated on radio, being picked-up online. #FreeCuthbert spread like fire across social, instantly inspiring original content across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, as the public came out en-masse to join the #FreeCuthbert movement.

As our #FreeCuthbert tweets continued, as did the support of the nation. As well as the public, brands, charities and celebrities added their voices to the ever-growing #FreeCuthbert chants.

All in, the #FreeCuthbert campaign consisted of two bursts of activity. The initial campaign, #FreeCuthbert, ran between 15th April – 20th April 2021. Then, #FreeCuthbert #Round2 ran in December.

With barely more than 150 words, we were able to turn a potentially bad news story overwhelmingly in our favour. The #FreeCuthbert campaign had won the hearts, minds and mouths of the public, while M&S were left rueing their decision to go public with the announcement.

#FreeCuthbert became Aldi’s biggest news story in years. Over 500 written articles and 342 broadcast items, represented over 300,000,000 opportunities to see, in its first 24-hours alone.

Headline results:

- Trended #1 on Twitter

- More than £5.5m in earned media

- 530,000,000 social impressions

- Over 30% increase in Twitter following – from approx. 440k to 572k

- Over 40m views on TikTok

- Facebook page views increased 2321%

- Engagement rate across Twitter and Facebook: 15.3%

- News Sentiment: Aldi +8.5%, M&S -134%

- Purchase Consideration: Aldi +6.1%, M&S -15.3%

- All for £0 spend. Which is the cherry on the cake.