Submitted by Richmond & Towers Communications

Pukka: Christmas Dinner Pie

Richmond & Towers built a Christmas Dinner Pie launch with LadBaby for Pukka, delivering 170 pieces of coverage with +381M reach and the brand's fastest new product rate of sale.

170 pieces with +381M reachmedia reach

Case in 60 seconds

Pukka wanted to communicate a message of full-on flavour and, with the brand reaching its 60th birthday, to drive relevance with younger audiences, an anniversary framing that risks speaking to heritage buyers rather than new ones.

The campaign appears to turn on the reading that full-on flavour belongs to festive celebration, because Christmas dinner is the food-centred moment of the year and the nation's love for the one-day-a-year roast gives a pie brand a way in.

For Pukka to be Number One at Christmas, the agency went to those who are festively famous, taking the chart phrase literally and building the launch around a partner who owns the Christmas number one as a personal record.

Richmond & Towers partnered with LadBaby and LadBaby Mum to co-develop a Christmas Dinner Pie, then supported it with high-impact media visuals, social content teased across LadBaby's and Pukka's TikTok and Instagram channels, and shopper marketing assets, with 10p from every pie sold going to the Trussell Trust.

Richmond & Towers reports Pukka's fastest NPD rate of sale ever, 170 pieces of coverage with +381M reach, and placement in Rolling Stone and Metro alongside the Mirror, The Sun, Daily Star and Independent.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

Younger audiences, whom Pukka wanted to reach for relevance as the brand marked its 60th birthday.
A 60-year-old savoury pastry brand has limited standing in the entertainment conversation, so the agency borrowed entry through a collaborator whose fame sits inside the Christmas chart moment rather than inside food.
Based on the available evidence, pies compete on flavour claims that are hard to distinguish, so the agency attached the full-on flavour message to Christmas dinner, the single meal the page describes as the focal point of the year.
Pukka acted as the maker of a product the partner and audience already wanted, co-developing the Christmas Dinner Pie with LadBaby and LadBaby Mum instead of sponsoring content around an existing line.
The page frames Christmas dinner as a one-day-a-year roast the nation loves, which suggests the pie worked by offering that occasion outside its single permitted day.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Instagram
  • TikTok

Partners

  • Richmond & Towers Communications (lead_agency)

Creator role

  • LadBaby — creator
  • LadBaby Mum (Rox) — creator

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult type
media reach170 pieces with +381M reachreach

Why Richmond & Towers Communications's strategy worked

  1. 1

    A brand claim can be matched to a partner whose personal record already proves it, so LadBaby's five Christmas number ones let Pukka assert being Number One at Christmas through the partner rather than through advertising language.

  2. 2

    Pre-existing unpaid affinity does work that a paid brief cannot, because LadBaby and Rox were already shouting out Pukka on social, which makes the co-developed product read as an extension of what they said unprompted.

  3. 3

    Building the partnership into a physical product rather than a content series gives the coverage something to report and the shopper marketing something to sell, which is how a social collaboration reaches a rate of sale figure.

  4. 4

    An entertainment partner carries a food product into entertainment media, and the Rolling Stone and Metro placements suggest the coverage followed the collaborator's cultural category rather than the brand's trade press.

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