By Jack Peat

Greggs and Gillette will be basking in the spoils of successful January marketing campaigns this month after early results show an uplift in sales and brand awareness.

Gillette achieved the highest uplift in Ad Awareness of any brand in the UK thanks to their brave yet divisive campaign “The Best a Man Can Be”, which challenged toxic masculinity in modern society.

YouGov BrandIndex data shows that Gillette’s Ad Awareness score (whether someone has seen an ad for the brand in the past two weeks) improved by a massive 12 per cent – up from 13 per cent to 25 per cent following the adverts launch on the 13th January.

Naturally, not all of that was positive, but it did result in a Word of Mouth Exposure score of +11.4 compared to +0.9 prior, which will doubtless come as music to the ears of execs who are battling to stay relevant in an increasingly saturated market.

As for Greggs’ coveted new vegan sausage roll, which made Piers Morgan almost throw-up on Good Morning Britain so incensed was he by the herbivorous erosion of our meaty pastry treat, the bakery has seen a sales boost of 14 per cent in the first seven weeks of 2019.

Like-for-like sales in stores have increased by nearly ten per cent up until 16th February, growth which was attributed to the launch of the vegan-friendly sausage roll in the company’s financial statement.

It goes to show that pissing Piers Morgan off could indeed be a bonafide marketing strategy in 2019, and as I noted here, the formula is devilishly simple: Take one virtuous message and target one of the most well-followed, straight-talking personalities on social media and you will get a backlash that will write headlines for weeks to come in return, keeping your brand in the public’s eye for the foreseeable future.

There is something perversely satisfying about labelling Piers Morgan a “marketing tool”. He undoubtedly qualifies as one, but he is also wistfully unaware of it. What he sees as a bid to rid Britain of PC-ravaged clowns is actually creating a Morgan Multiplier of brand equity and increased sales.

As Oscar Wilde once said “there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”. I would agree, but in this day and age would add, “you could do a lot worse than rub Piers Morgan up the wrong way”.