PR
SOCIAL & INFLUENCER
REACTIVE CONTENT
PRODUCTION & EXPERIENTIAL
Brasseries were having a moment. With a wave of new openings across London and the UK, it was clear that we were at peak brasserie. For Charlie Bigham’s, the UK’s leading premium pre-prepared food brand, this cultural moment was both a challenge and an opportunity.
How could we convince food lovers who’d happily splash out on a brasserie meal to instead indulge in a restaurant-quality experience from the comfort of their own home? The brief was simple: launch Bigham’s new Brasserie Range with a bold, social and PR-led campaign that would turn heads, spark conversation, and prove that dining “out” can taste just as good when you’re in.
To introduce the new Brasserie Range, we built a multi-phase campaign that celebrated the joy of elevated home dining, with a signature Charlie Bigham’s wink.
We began by positioning Charlie himself as an eccentric food critic “researching” Britain’s best brasseries. His tongue-in-cheek Google reviews, left at real brasseries across the UK, hinted that perhaps he’d been “inspired” by a few too many dining experiences while developing his latest creations. It was playful, self-aware, and instantly set tongues wagging.
Next came a show-stopping guerrilla social activation that quite literally brought the brasserie home, or rather, out. Across London landmarks including Buckingham Palace, Primrose Hill, Portobello Road and Bedale Street, passers-by stumbled upon fully dressed “date night” tables: crisp linens, flickering candles, fine cutlery - and two diners tucking into Charlie Bigham’s Brasserie meals as if it were the most natural thing in the world. These surreal scenes created the perfect “WTF” moments, amplified through viral partnerships with Archbishop of Banterbury and Great British Memes, fuelling mass engagement and intrigue across social media.
We knew that to get media and influencers talking about the campaign that we would need to get the product into their hands, and we did that with the launch of - Chez Toi, the first ever brasserie set in a house. For launch night, we transformed a real house into a decadent dining destination, serving dishes such as Beef Wellington in bed and Coq au Vin in the bath. The experience perfectly encapsulated Bigham’s “dining out, in” philosophy, giving media and influencers a taste of indulgence, minus the restaurant reservation.
Alongside all of that we executed a high level media strategy that would support our wtf moments, and make sure the story was landing in traditional media too. It involved placing strategic interviews with Charlie about the range, a research based news story on how Brits prefer date nights at home and targeting reviews and taste test sections of major media outlets to ensure we had coverage landing for at least a week after the initial launch moment.
The campaign turned the humble ready meal into a headline-making experience — and proved that sometimes, the best table in town is your own.
The Brasserie range launch became one of Bigham’s most impactful PR moments with:
