· happened: on 15 April 2021
M&S took Aldi to court over a cake and Aldi replied with the plaintiff's own slogan
Marks & Spencer sued Aldi, claiming its Cuthbert the Caterpillar birthday cake copied its own Colin the Caterpillar. Aldi's answer wasn't a press release: it parodied M&S's most famous advertising line —that "this is not just food…"— and turned the lawsuit into the #FreeCuthbert campaign. Within a few hours Aldi was the top trending topic on UK Twitter.
«This is not just any court case, this is... #FreeCuthbert»
You get sued and you answer with the plaintiff's own slogan: brand judo in its purest form. The move works twice over. First it turns a supremely boring commercial dispute into a popular cause complete with a prisoner: free Cuthbert. Then it forces M&S to choose between playing along (and handing over the media win) or staying silent and looking like the villain who jails caterpillars. Aldi won the court of public opinion before anyone reached the courtroom.
Source: HELLO! Magazine
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