Petrol-flavoured egg carries bitter climate message

M&C Saatchi UK, working in partnership with Climate Basecamp, has created a literally unpalatable campaign.

Some issues are meant to leave a bitter taste in your mouth, so for Easter 2026 the agency produced a limited-edition chocolate egg that is entirely edible yet deliberately disgusting.

Infused with, yep, ‘petroleum notes’, it is designed to taste like the future of cocoa if climate change continues unchecked. 

The egg forms the centrepiece of Climate Basecamp’s broader ‘Save the Flavors’ initiative, which highlights how the fragile equatorial belt where cocoa grows is increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather, shifting rainfall patterns and rising temperatures.

The execution, like M+C Saatchi’s climate campaign last week, is brutally simple and shows the agency is on something of a roll.

Families are invited to crack open what looks like a perfectly ordinary Easter treat, only to be met with an overwhelming chemical tang that lingers unpleasantly.

Social films show genuine reactions of revulsion, followed by an explanation of the campaign’s goal.

A dedicated page on the Climate Basecamp site lays out three immediate steps manufacturers can take to protect supply chains and support farmers.

Our take

With bars shrinking, prices climbing (seriously, I was charged £1.50 for a Snickers the other week), this campaign’s brilliance is in its easy to understand (if not stomach) hook.

M&C Saatchi has a history of such provocation for brands such as the Conservative Party, and its recent campaign follows in the footsteps of the likes of Ben & Jerry’s (who drop the odd activist flavour) or Patagonia, whose products carry blunt warnings

By appealing to our senses, the agency has made a physically uncomfortable, memorable, and hard-to-scroll past effort that’s bound to linger.