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Aldi asks every Colin - and Gemma Collins - to become a Cuthbert for the day
Key Takeaways
Aldi launched “Callin’ All Colins”, asking people named Colin to temporarily change their name to Cuthbert.
Gemma Collins became Gemma Cuthberts for the campaign, changing her Instagram name and appearing in a supporting video.
The supermarket also appealed to a 200-year-old dictionary, an influencer inventor and someone named Coleen as it attempted to recruit more Cuthberts.
Created by McCann Manchester, the social campaign continues the supermarket’s long-running jokes surrounding Cuthbert and M&S’s Colin the Caterpillar.
If your name is Colin, Aldi would like a word. The supermarket has launched a campaign asking people across the country to temporarily abandon their name and become Cuthbert instead, all in support of its chocolate caterpillar cake. According to Aldi, the problem is that Cuthbert is becoming an increasingly uncommon name while Colin continues to thrive, making it considerably more difficult to sell a cake when there are fewer human Cuthberts keeping his name in circulation. Its solution was to begin recruiting replacements, starting with one of Britain’s most recognisable Collins.
The brand has even recruited the iconic reality TV star Gemma Collins to help, with her changing her name on her official Instagram account to Gemma Cuthberts as well as appearing in a video supporting the campaign, declaring herself firmly on “Team Cuthbert”. The supermarket also widened its search beyond conventional Colins by approaching a 200-year-old dictionary, Collin's Dictionary, an influencer inventor and someone named Coleen, stretching the rules whenever another potential Cuthbert presented itself.
Gemma Collins became Gemma Cuthberts as Aldi searched for people willing to protect the caterpillar’s name
Created by McCann Manchester, “Callin’ All Colins” launched on 10 September and was built primarily for social media, where Aldi has spent years developing Cuthbert into a character with his own rivalries, misfortunes and increasingly dramatic storylines.
Gemma Collins gives the campaign an immediate joke that can be understood before the video has even been watched. By changing Collins to Cuthberts, Aldi turned her existing name into part of the creative, while her energetic public personality made the request feel believable within the deliberately ridiculous world surrounding Cuthbert.
The temporary change to her Instagram profile also allowed the activity to exist beyond a sponsored post. Anyone visiting her account could see the new name, creating an additional detail for followers to notice, question and share as the campaign unfolded.
Aldi returned to the Colin and Cuthbert rivalry that transformed a supermarket cake into a recurring social character
Cuthbert’s history makes the name-change campaign much more meaningful than a standalone celebrity partnership. M&S launched legal action against Aldi in 2021, arguing that Cuthbert was too similar to its Colin the Caterpillar cake, before the two retailers reached a settlement in 2022. Rather than avoiding the attention, Aldi used the dispute to build an ongoing social media storyline around its cake, turning Cuthbert into the unfortunate underdog of Britain’s caterpillar wars.
“Callin’ All Colins” returns to that familiar competition without needing to directly restart the legal battle. The suggestion that Colin remains popular while Cuthbert is disappearing gives Aldi another reason to position its cake as the character requiring public support, inviting people to help correct the supposed imbalance one temporary name change at a time. It also demonstrates the value of maintaining a recognisable brand story over several years. People who remember the original dispute can enjoy the latest reference, while Gemma Cuthberts and the wider search for Colins are playful enough to introduce the character to anyone encountering him for the first time.
Why The PR Insider loves it
We have loved watching just how far Aldi has been willing to take its ideas throughout 2026. The supermarket has parked a van outside Cadbury World to give away its own mini eggs and transformed its Barnet store into a pink dreamland for the launch of an Aldi-themed Barbie. What connects these campaigns is Aldi’s willingness to take a relatively simple observation and push it much further than expected. These ideas could easily have remained social posts, but the brand repeatedly finds ways to turn them into physical stunts, public invitations and moments people can actively become part of.
The choice of Gemma Collins is particularly clever because she hasn’t simply been added to the campaign for celebrity reach. Her name is the idea. Changing her Instagram profile to Gemma Cuthberts and publicly joining Team Cuthbert allowed her to become part of the joke, while giving the campaign an instantly recognisable personality who was willing to embrace its deliberate ridiculousness.
Most importantly, Aldi’s stranger ideas still tend to lead back to something recognisably Aldi. The humour may be exaggerated, but the product, price message or brand rivalry remains easy to identify. By continuing to show up with campaigns that are playful, reactive and slightly unexpected, Aldi has created a marketing personality audiences increasingly know how to recognise, even when the latest idea involves renaming half the country after a chocolate caterpillar.
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