How Aldi stole the news agenda with a Kate Moss lookalike
As Chanel arrived in town for an exclusive fashion event, Aldi devised a way to hijack the attention at minimal expense.
When Aldi discovered an exclusive fashion event would take place on its doorstep in December 2023, the retailer jumped at the chance to capitalise on the media frenzy.
The Chanel Métiers d’Art fashion show is hosted annually in secret hotspots around the world. Three days before the event, its location was revealed as a venue just 800 metres from an Aldi store in central Manchester.
Aldi and agency McCann Manchester hatched a plan to hack the news cycle and social buzz around the event, with the aim of driving fame for the retailer’s low prices.
Playing on its reputation for offering ‘lookalike’ value products, Aldi hired a lookalike of the supermodel Kate Moss to shop in its store on the day of the Chanel show. Actors posing as paparazzi gathered around Aldi’s ‘Fake Moss’, generating a sudden surge in attention from shoppers and bystanders.
The supermarket even sent a member of staff to spread the word among the real paparazzi and social media influencers who had gathered outside the Chanel event. ‘Kate Moss’s Aldi trip’ soon went viral on social media and was picked up by multiple national news outlets.
The brand then pulled the rug and revealed the prank, amplifying the story further as journalists and social media users joined in on the joke.
The stunt generated over £65m worth of earned media coverage without a single penny being spent on traditional advertising. Aldi also recorded more than 800,000 social media engagements from the stunt, which landed them the 2024 Marketing Week Award for Best Use of a Small Budget.
