A single talent booking sparked a three-pronged partnership spanning song rights, press and a live watch party series for Pukka’s biggest ever World Cup campaign.
Some brand partnerships need months of persuasion. Others simply make sense the moment someone says the idea out loud. Pukka’s new Chicken Vindaloo Pie, launched into a World Cup summer, needed one song and one voice. MN2S found both.
MN2S booked Fat Les frontman Alex James for the campaign, a single booking that opened the door to three connected strands of activity: the licensing of his 1998 anthem “Vindaloo”, a run of press interviews and social content, and a series of World Cup watch parties hosted by James in central London. Together, these three strands turned a pie launch into one of the most talked-about food and drink campaigns of the tournament, as reported by The Grocer , Better Retailing, PRmoment and the Rolling Stone.
Rachel Cranston, brand director at Pukka, said: “Pukka and football have always gone hand-in-hand. Tournament summers are built on atmosphere, chants and the food that brings fans together – and as the nation’s half-time pie, we wanted to bring the matchday energy in the biggest and boldest way we ever have as a brand.
“Vindaloo is one of the most iconic football anthems of all time and has soundtracked football culture for generations. We want it to become the anthem of the summer once again and bring that together with our hottest pie, Chicken Vindaloo, to create something fans genuinely connect with throughout the summer.
“This is a huge moment for the brand, and we’re excited to bring football, music, and full-on flavour to fans wherever they are watching.”
Strand One: A Song and a Pie Built for Each Other
Few briefs come with a name this obvious already attached. Pukka’s hottest pie to date carries the same name as one of English football’s most recognisable chants, so the creative direction wrote itself. However, actually clearing the rights to a track this culturally loaded takes more than good timing.
The booking gave Pukka access to a song that has soundtracked England tournaments since 1998, despite famously never reaching number one. Consequently, the brand gained something far harder to buy than a jingle or a generic football sting: genuine, ready-made nostalgia that needed no explanation to fans, according to SLR Magazine.
Strand Two: Alex James Steps Up as the Voice of Vindaloo
As the co-creator of the anthem, alongside Guy Pratt and Keith Allen under the name Fat Les, Alex James was the obvious talent to front the campaign. The Blur bassist took part in a run of interviews and social content, lending the campaign a level of authenticity that a celebrity with no connection to the song simply could not offer, per Talking Retail.
One standout example is James’s bylined feature for Rolling Stone UK, in which he tells the story of writing the track with Keith Allen, from a leftover terrace drumbeat to a chorus built around a single line he used to sing on the terraces at AFC Bournemouth. James describes the song as the most unlikely hit of his career, one he has still never heard on the radio despite it enduring on the terraces for nearly thirty years. This distinction matters. A brand can hire a well-known face to talk about a product, or it can work with the person who actually created the cultural reference the product is built around. James’s involvement falls firmly into the second category, which is why his contribution reads as credible rather than bolted on.
Strand Three: Pukka Pies Presents BRITPOP with Alex James
The third strand brought the campaign into the real world through a run of live events, Pukka Pies presents BRITPOP with Alex James, held at the Lost Oasis in St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, in collaboration with the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The series ran across three dates in June, each timed for the eve of one of England’s opening World Cup group matches, against Croatia, Ghana and Panama, as confirmed by Louder.
Doors opened from 6pm, with fans able to eat from the Pukka Pies Kitchen and drink from a line-up of themed bars before James took to the stage for a DJ set. As James himself put it, football unites people, and pairing it with good food and music in the heart of London made for a memorable evening. Pukka used the events to hand out samples of the new Chicken Vindaloo Pie, while branded touches around the venue reinforced the tie-up between the anthem, the pie and the tournament itself. For a product built entirely on matchday ritual, few settings could have made the connection feel more natural than a run of pre-match parties in Trafalgar Square on the eve of England’s group games.
Why This Partnership Works
The strength of this deal lies in how neatly its three strands reinforce each other. The song gives the campaign its cultural hook, the artist gives it credibility, and the live events give it a physical, shareable moment fans can actually attend. Remove any one piece, and the campaign loses something. A licensed song without its creator would feel like stock music. A celebrity appearance without the song would feel generic. A watch party without either would be just another activation among dozens running throughout the tournament.
Pukka also benefits from a head start that many brands attempting football tie-ins do not have. The brand already sits in more than half of the UK’s football league stadiums and reaches over 22.5 million fans each season, a relationship stretching back fifty years to its first pies served at Rotherham United. As a result, the Vindaloo campaign is not manufacturing a football association from nothing. It is amplifying one that already exists, using talent to bring it to life for a new tournament summer.
The Bigger Picture for Brand and Talent Partnerships
This deal is a useful reminder that a single, well-chosen talent booking can carry a campaign across song rights, press and live activation, provided every strand points back to the same idea. Rather than treating these as three separate workstreams, the campaign built them around a single thread: the genuine link between an anthem, its creator and the product it now shares a name with.
For brands weighing up their next tournament moment, whether that is a future World Cup, the Euros or a major domestic season, the lesson is straightforward. Look for talent with a real connection to the cultural asset a campaign is built on, then build every other element, from press to live events, around that same connection, rather than treating each piece as a separate booking.