Stunt Watch: Sweary coffee, free food and a chic bag from Lidl to put it in

Flat white or f*ck off

Dubbed London’s most controversial coffee shop, Flat White or F*ck Off opened at Outernet serving a single option. No milk swaps, no syrups, no sizes, no customisation. Just take the flat white… or don’t.

It’s a deliberately blunt response to modern choice overload. 

An antidote to the ‘live how you want’ and endless options, we’ve spent years optimising for personalisation. Build your own. Tailor your own. Curate your own etc. The idea itself was that of marketing maestro, Rory Sutherland, and some very clever creatives brought it to life to show the power it holds.

The creative execution is simple. A stark black-and-white structure with a deliberately confrontational name, with a single product. It had Londoners going crazy for it. So crazy that TFL actually shut them down, before other teams stepped in to keep the dream alive.

From a PR perspective, it really captures how bonkers it is that we’ve built this overly-complicated world, which even the Starbucks CEO has admitted they’ve fallen for.

Keep it simple, get good results.

Polymarket’s free grocery store

Polymarket, a company built on forecasting real-world outcomes, opened a fully stocked free grocery store in New York, no catch, simply walk in, fill a bag and leave. There are a couple of caveats: entry is capped at 300 customers per day, and supplies are limited. The pop-up ran for several days and drew insane queues around the block(s).

Grocery costs are soaring and food insecurity is rising so this one sits a bit weird with me.

Also, its biggest rival, Kalshi, did the exact same stunt a few weeks before. They either have the same agency that’s laughing all the way to the bank, or they’re out of ideas. But the weirdest part about the whole thing is that homelessness is a HUGE issue within NYC and across America, so this felt just a little bit dystopian.

The main part, not to forget, was practical help at a moment when grocery costs are a major public pressure point. The takeover was fairly straightforward. No complicated mechanics, no heavy brand messaging in-store except the line “New York's First Free Grocery Store”.

From a PR standpoint, however, it is quite clever because it moves the brand from a speculative platform that profits from people losing money to a socially aware brand that stands with and for the people.

I think we’ll see a lot more from these new tech-focused bookmakers.

Lidl’s latest release

Back in 2024 Lidl was deep in the making merch trend that swept the PR industry with force, debuting its Croissant Bag, which took off in the media and made a lot of noise. So much noise, in fact, that this year, it's back with its next instalment.

The supermarket teamed up with designer Nik Bentel to release the Lidl Trolley Bag. It looks like a miniature supermarket trolley. It functions like a handbag. 

It’s brilliantly absurd; it takes one of the most mundane retail objects imaginable and turns it into a luxury accessory.

Fashion loves elevating the everyday; we see that a lot from the high-end brands, so why not get in on the action? The coverage has been phenomenal, with nearly every glossy street-style mag writing it up, and you can easily imagine it out in the wild. It won’t be long until the oozingly cool creatives of East London start treating it like a collectable.

Turning a croissant into a handbag could have been a one-off joke. Turning a trolley into one makes it feel like a consistent moment that keeps Lidl at the forefront of conversation. Fair play.