Levi Roots Brings Reggae Reggae Sauce to Life in Aardman Animation
The Reggae Reggae Sauce 2012 campaign, titled 'Put some Music in your Food', is a UK television film in which founder Levi Roots is transformed into an Aardman animated character to celebrate the Caribbean heritage and charismatic personality at the heart of the brand, produced by JWT London with a £2 million budget.
Published in the United Kingdom in July 2012, the campaign marked a bold creative commitment to character-led storytelling. Rather than leaning on conventional food advertising — appetite shots, voiceover claims, product close-ups — Reggae Reggae Sauce placed its founder, Levi Roots, at the absolute centre of the narrative. The brand, owned by AB World Foods, had already established Levi Roots as its defining public face following his celebrated appearance on BBC's Dragons' Den, where his musical pitch for the sauce became a piece of UK cultural history. The 2012 campaign deepened that identity rather than departing from it, according to campaignlive.co.uk.
The campaign ran across television, cinema, online, PR, in-store point of sale, and sampling channels, with its first TV airing on ITV on 3 May 2012 and a run continuing until mid-August. Media planning and buying was handled by ZenithOptimedia. By anchoring the campaign in animation produced by Aardman Animations — the Bristol studio whose characters carry immediate warmth and recognition for UK audiences — Reggae Reggae Sauce created a vehicle that was simultaneously entertainment and brand communication. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 76 out of 100.
Reggae Reggae Sauce was positioned as a £30 million brand at the time of the 2012 campaign. That valuation reflected a remarkable trajectory: Levi Roots had developed the sauce from a Jamaican family recipe and secured an exclusive retail contract in 2007, with Sainsbury's becoming an early stockist, as reported by campaignlive.co.uk. The brand's founder-led identity was not a marketing construct but a genuine origin story, and the 2012 campaign by JWT London was built to amplify that authenticity rather than manufacture it.
The strategic rationale centred on differentiation within a crowded UK condiment market. The United Kingdom's food retail environment presented Reggae Reggae Sauce with a competitive landscape dominated by established sauce brands carrying far greater shelf presence and marketing budgets. Against that backdrop, the campaign's planners — Claire Jackson and Harvey Cossell — identified that Levi Roots himself represented the brand's most defensible and distinctive asset. No competing condiment brand in the United Kingdom could claim a founder with the same cultural currency: a musician, entrepreneur, and television personality whose story had already captured national attention.
The decision to pursue animation, specifically through Aardman Animations, addressed an additional strategic need. Animation allowed the campaign to operate in a register that was warm, accessible, and family-friendly, broadening its appeal beyond existing buyers of the sauce. In the United Kingdom, where Aardman's visual language carries decades of affection, the choice of production partner was itself a signal of creative ambition and tonal intent. The campaign targeted UK consumers with an appetite for diverse, ethnically rooted flavors and an appreciation for brand stories that feel genuinely earned.
Merlin Crossingham directed the film for Reggae Reggae Sauce, working through Aardman Animations — the production company whose stop-motion and character animation work has defined a particular strand of British visual culture. The campaign was overseen at JWT London by executive creative director Russell Ramsey and creative director Jason Berry, with art direction by Christiano Neves and Bruno Xavier, who also shared copywriting duties. TV production was managed by Denise Connell.
On screen, Levi Roots comes to life as an Aardman-animated character, rendered in the tactile, expressive style that the studio is known for. The animated Levi Roots inhabits the visual language of Aardman's world — warmth, slight exaggeration, and an unmistakable handmade quality — while carrying the musicality and Caribbean energy that define his public persona. The campaign's tagline, 'Put some Music in your Food', is enacted rather than merely stated: the character and the execution together make the case that Reggae Reggae Sauce is not simply a condiment but a flavour experience with a story and a soul behind it.
The production represented a £2 million investment in TV and cinema creative, a figure that underscores the seriousness of the brand's commitment to this campaign, as reported by campaignlive.co.uk. Viewers were directed to the brand's Facebook page at the close of the ad, integrating a social feedback loop into what was primarily a broadcast-led campaign. That combination — premium animation craft, a multichannel distribution plan spanning television, cinema, online, and in-store — reflected the account team's intent to build both awareness and engagement simultaneously across the United Kingdom.
The Reggae Reggae Sauce 'Put some Music in your Food' film generated 826,809 views, 6,646 likes, and 517 comments on its online platform, figures that speak to meaningful organic engagement for a branded food film in 2012. The volume of comments in particular — 517 — indicates active audience participation rather than passive consumption, consistent with the campaign's explicit invitation for viewers to share their reactions via the brand's Facebook page.
These engagement metrics sit within the context of a campaign that ran across television, cinema, online, PR, in-store point of sale, and sampling simultaneously. The first TV airing on ITV on 3 May 2012 gave the film immediate national reach in the United Kingdom, with the run extending through mid-August 2012 — a sustained period of exposure across a key summer trading window for a food brand with strong associations with outdoor eating and Caribbean flavour. No independently verified sales uplift or market share data for the campaign period is publicly available beyond the view and engagement figures cited above.
What the campaign achieved structurally was the consolidation of Levi Roots as an animated brand icon in the United Kingdom — a creative device that extended the brand's storytelling capability beyond the founder's physical appearances. The Aardman association also lent the campaign a quality signal that reinforced the brand's premium positioning within the UK condiment category, supporting its standing as a £30 million brand at the time of the campaign.
The 'Put some Music in your Food' campaign is a 2012 UK television film created by JWT London for Reggae Reggae Sauce. It transforms founder Levi Roots into an Aardman animated character, produced with a £2 million budget and first aired on ITV on 3 May 2012, running until mid-August across television, cinema, and online channels.
Merlin Crossingham directed the Reggae Reggae Sauce film for Aardman Animations. The campaign was led creatively at JWT London by executive creative director Russell Ramsey and creative director Jason Berry, with art direction and copywriting shared between Christiano Neves and Bruno Xavier, as reported by campaignlive.co.uk.
The Reggae Reggae Sauce 'Levi Roots' film received 826,809 views, along with 6,646 likes and 517 comments on its online platform. Viewers were directed to the brand's Facebook page to share feedback, integrating a social engagement layer into what was primarily a broadcast-led UK campaign.
Reggae Reggae Sauce chose Aardman Animations to bring warmth, craft, and broad UK audience recognition to the campaign. Aardman's visual language carries strong affection among British viewers, allowing the brand to present Levi Roots as a character with immediate emotional appeal while reinforcing the brand's premium, personality-led positioning in the UK condiment market.
Reggae Reggae Sauce was positioned as a £30 million brand at the time of the 2012 campaign. The brand had grown from a Jamaican family recipe developed by Levi Roots, gaining national UK distribution after his appearance on BBC's Dragons' Den and securing an early exclusive retail contract with Sainsbury's in 2007, as reported by campaignlive.co.uk.
The 2012 Reggae Reggae Sauce campaign ran across television, cinema, online, PR, in-store point of sale, and sampling in the United Kingdom. Media planning and buying was handled by ZenithOptimedia. The TV film first aired on ITV on 3 May 2012 and continued through mid-August, covering a full summer trading window for the brand.
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