Creative Corner: On The Beach, The Traitors and Oxfam
Deep into January and already a month of bombshell announcements, political squabbles (or stupidity depending on how you look at it) and treacherous back-stabbing.
As I celebrate another birthday (bring on the age of Aquarius), this week’s Creative Corner serves up some Oxfam pie in the face for the billionaires at Davos, a cliff hanger from BBC’s The Traitors and a cheeky little response to a very public family feud. Enjoy.
Oxfam’s billionaire pies
In the middle of East London, while private jets hummed toward Davos and billionaires exchanged pleasantries over champagne, Oxfam quietly opened a pie shop this week. Or rather, a point of view disguised as pastry.
For one day only, Hoxton’s historic F. Cooke became home to Pie Society, a pop-up dishing up large dollops of uncomfortable truths. At first glance, it was pie and mash at its finest laced with liquor and the familiar clink of cutlery. Then, the prices.
The £6 People’s Pie & Mash sat proudly on the menu, affordable and comforting. But beside it loomed The Upper Crust Special, priced at a cool £67 million, the not-so-fictional sum Britain’s billionaires could contribute under a proposed 2% wealth tax. Same pie. Vastly different cost. Inequality marked onto a chalkboard. No lectures, no graphs, just a simple baked truth: if a policy can fit on a menu, maybe it isn’t as complicated as we’re told. As Oxfam put it, “It’s as easy as pie.”
Timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum, Oxfam’s Pie Society reminded passers-by that while food stretch household budgets, Britain’s richest accumulate enough wealth in ten minutes to cover a year’s shop. In a warm shop, over mashed potatoes and gravy, a serious idea became digestible.
It’s not the first time Oxfam has used an old British tradition to launch their report. Previous renditions have included The Fair Pour pub where a pint was priced at £1m for billionaires. Pie Society is a decent second album, they may need to change it up for the third, the Silver Spoon fry up perhaps.
Chalk is sweet for The Traitors
I couldn’t let this week pass by without mentioning one of the most-watched and anticipated pieces of terrestrial TV programming to grace our screens this year. It is, of course, The Traitors. Whether you’re a four-series devotee or a ‘I watched the celebrity one, and now I’m hooked’ newbie, as this goes to press, there will be viewers avidly awaiting the finale as a traitor or, in a move which will quite frankly come right against the grain, a faithful emerges triumphant.
Setting the tone for the final act, the BBC this week turned one of Britain’s most iconic natural landmarks into a giant message board. In the dusk of a chilly winter evening, the sheer chalk face of the White Cliffs of Dover became a canvas. In glowing letters blazed the phrase: “THE TIME FOR CHALK IS ALMOST OVER.”
A fittingly playful riff on host Claudia Winkleman’s iconic “the time for talk is over.”
Big letters for a big catchphrase that, like its host, Claudia, has fast become iconic, much like the canvas it was projected onto.
Big projections can be a bit hit and miss, but this one felt fitting for the cliffhanger that awaits.
On The Beach keeps it in the family
Last but not least, this week I had to finish on a cheeky little number that, from amongst the many memes on the subject, stood out to me not only for its speed of execution, but because it was a great example of a brand stepping into a contentious conversation with permissible authenticity.
On the Beach’s Family Fall Out Refund policy, launched in reaction to Brooklyn Beckham’s statement, works not just because it touches on a holiday truth but because the brand itself has become a loved and accepted participant of meme culture.
The reference is knowing, but not cynical, a cultural nod that turns tabloid tension into something surprisingly practical. Emotionally intelligent, it embraces the messiness of real life and offers reassurance.
Booking genius.
Well, that wraps up another Creative Corner!
As ever, if you’re launching something that deserves a spot in Creative Corner, or have seen a campaign you just love, please do share it with us. Email paul.lucas@fanclubpr.com
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