Bacon Don’t Buffer: When Kevin Bacon Met Jamie Oliver

Broadband advertising is boring. Speed claims, coverage maps, price comparisons — it’s a category where every brand says essentially the same thing in the same way. EE’s ‘Bacon Don’t Buffer’ campaign broke the mould by turning a product message into entertainment.

The Concept

Kevin Bacon was already the face of EE — a celebrity ambassador who brought personality to what could have been sterile brand communications. The twist for this campaign was pairing him with Jamie Oliver for a cooking-themed piece about the joys of uninterrupted streaming.

The concept played on the obvious name pun (Bacon, bacon) while delivering a genuine product message about EE’s fibre broadband. It shouldn’t have worked — it was deliberately cheesy. But the self-awareness of the approach made it charming rather than cringe.

Content Strategy

Rather than a single TV spot, the campaign was designed as a multi-format content piece. The hero video lived on YouTube, with shorter cuts for social media and behind-the-scenes content that extended the narrative. Each piece could stand alone but worked better as part of the series.

Performance

The campaign significantly outperformed broadband advertising benchmarks for engagement and shareability. Brand recall was exceptionally high — the memorable concept ensured that people remembered it was EE, not just ‘one of the broadband companies’. The campaign proved that even in functional product categories, entertainment value drives results.