Merely seconds after news broke of Kate Middleton’s second pregnancy, brands took to Twitter to share their congratulations, and perhaps slip a little sneaky self-promotion in too! With this in mind, we at The Practice were keen to share our favourite #RoyalBaby moments so far, and look back on last year’s royal baby hype too.

Perhaps quickest off the mark with an advert posted to Twitter, was Vodka company, Wkd. The brand tweeted an image which included the jokey tagline, “Kate’s got another bun in the AGA!” alongside Wkd’s branding and company slogan. Other tweets which made us chuckle included Tesco’s, in which they kindly mentioned their “Pampers on offer”, with the hash tag, #ThreeWordsSheWantsToHear- (somehow we can’t imagine Kate taking advantage of the deal!) In another tweet, Royal Mail hash tagged their congratulations with the words, #SpecialDelivery, leading to jokes that the baby would presumably arrive late!

While some brands cleverly piggybacked the announcement for their own self-promotion or product placement, others seemed to make some tenuous links to the event. This was hilariously true of the London Fire Brigade, who tweeted: “If you’re pregnant like Kate & trapped we’ll attend but a lot of lift rescues are not emergencies #RoyalBaby” While clutching at straws, it’s fair to say that at least the company offered some useful advice, funny though the tweet seemed at the time! Last year’s royal baby hype also drew some tenuous offerings, with yoghurt brand Chobani tweeting this in response to the arrival of Prince George: “Boy oh boy, the wait is over! We can stop the stress-eating now. An empty fridge is truly no way to celebrate.” To our minds, it seems pretty unlikely that the nation was gorging on greek yoghurt in anticipation, although fair play to Chobani for attempting to find a correlation!

So how else did brands celebrate the birth of Prince George last July? In true British fashion, Marks and Spencer launched a “Royal Etiquette Guide” in their unique Twitter campaign. This involved the company tweeting a series of etiquette rules, accompanied by pictures of cute toddlers. We especially loved Magnum’s take on the news, with the ice-cream company successfully combining product placement in conjunction with the national event. Their Twitter advert showed a mini-magnum, which the company hash tagged #MiniRoyal, flanked either side by two larger magnums. In more tasteful fashion, but still managing to include some self-promotion, Johnson & Johnson’s advert featured a heart-warming image of a bathing baby lathered in the company’s baby soap. We also liked Warburtons’ clever play on the phrase “a bun in the oven”, by including a fully baked bread roll in their advert, captioned with, “One’s bun is done”, signalling the arrival of the new baby. With nine months to prepare, it’s not surprising that some of the top British brands managed to imagine up a number of creative campaigns. With another nine months to go until the arrival of the second royal baby, we’ll be on the lookout to see what they’ll be featuring next.

Do you have any favourite social media or offline campaigns that have marked past royal births? We’d love to see your picks, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital, and share them with us on Facebook too.