Aldi steps up defence of Cuthbert cake with viral Twitter campaign – and the Internet loves it

Aldi has brought out the big guns in their cake war with Marks & Spencer.

The supermarket launched a #FreeCuthbert hashtag on Twitter on Friday and posted about the caterpillar cake row in a series of amusing tweets that mercilessly mocked its rival.

The campaign was very much in keeping with the rather tickled mood of the nation following the news of the legal battle, which spawned a series of memes after it was announced earlier this week.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter loved the PR stunt and the thread quickly went viral, with most people tweeting in support of the apparent underdog. Here are some of the best tweets from Aldi:

It comes after Marks & Spencer begun legal action against Aldi, arguing that Aldi is taking its intellectual property by making a similar cake.

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M&S wants Aldi to remove the product from sale and agree not to sell anything similar in the future, and said the similarity between the cakes would lead consumers to believe they are of the same standard.

A spokesperson said they wanted “to protect Colin, Connie and our reputation for freshness, quality, innovation and value”.

But Aldi have seen the funny side and seem undeterred by the legal issue:

Aldi even managed to reference another viral story from a day earlier, when Dulux mocked Spurs with a series of tweets, just moments after the football club had announced a new partnership with the paint company. The tweets were later deleted, but not before literally everyone had seen them.

They also made reference to the other caterpillar-style cakes created by other supermarkets after many questioned why those chains hadn’t been taken to court:

And even Morrisons has waded into the debate, appearing to side with Aldi:

M&S are yet to respond to the Twitter baiting; the supermarket hasn’t posted anything for a few days and only did so to promote a gin liqueur.

We look forward to seeing how they react.