Inside Britain’s marketing departments, people spend a lot of time agonising about being ‘on-brand.’ Worrying incessantly as to whether a TV ad or social media post fully supports their carefully curated narrative. At Greggs, it sometimes seems, they take the opposite approach. In recent years, the Newcastle-based baker has single-handily created a whole new marketing genre – let’s call it ‘off-brand’ communications.
As The Guardian points out, ‘the no-frills baker’s latest marketing stunt is a pop-up bar where its famous bakes will be served with £75-a-glass champagne in bespoke sausage roll-etched coupes.’ This Christmas Champagne Bar, run in partnership with upmarket retailer Fenwick, has generated countless headlines.
The Guardian again, the ‘pop-up in the department store’s food hall seats 16 customers around a curved bar, with guests encouraged to ring vintage crystal bells for a refill of Louis Roederer Cristal, which costs £425 a bottle.’
Louis Roederer and a Greggs sausage roll, is that really a match made in gastronomic heaven?
The Sun’s Consumer Reporter, Sam Walker, is just one of many tabloid journalists who seem to think so– ‘As I tucked into a sausage roll covered in hot chilli sauce while drinking a £95 glass of champagne, I was surprised by how well they went together,’ Walker wrote.
And the champagne bar is only the latest of Greggs’ headline-grabbing ‘off-brand’ events. As The Telegraph comments, ‘the company recently launched a line of jewellery, featuring sausage roll earrings and a Greggs logo signet ring, and has also produced clothing in partnership with Primark.’
A TV campaign for this year’s Xmas menu, fronted by Nigella Lawson, is another fine example of ‘off-branding.’ The fusion of Lawson’s refined upper-class image – something you’d usually expect to see deployed by a retailer like M&S – with Gregg’s traditionally working-class fare creates a wry, tongue-in-cheek culture clash which has got people talking.
Retail Gazette comments, ‘In the new advert, Lawson is seen at home alongside a Christmas tree decorated with Greggs baubles, before describing the “rapturous riot of flavour” of the chain’s “festive bake” pastry…taking a bite, she talks about its “succulent filling, creamy sauce, all wrapped up in the flakiest of flaky pastries.’
Nigella and Greggs? An unlikely alliance which, somehow, manages to work for both parties involved. We like Lawson more for being a good sport and sending herself up. We like Greggs more for being cheeky enough to hire her. As the TV chef might say, ‘a marvellously mischievous duo, darling!’