When Breakfast Becomes a Religion: Inside Oat Cult’s Gruesome, Hilarious, and Wildly Cinematic Tiramisu Campaign

In an era where modern advertising often retreats into safe, data-driven optimization, occasional flashes of unapologetic, beautifully bizarre audacity still manage to break through the noise. Following hot on the heels of KFC’s surreal Believe in Chicken gameshow campaign, overnight oats disruptor Oat Cult has taken things to an entirely different, albeit darkly humorous, stratosphere.

Their latest campaign—conceived by creative agency Thingy & Thingy and directed by Mike Upson through production powerhouse MindsEye—asks a simple question: How far would you go for a taste of tiramisu-flavoured overnight oats?

If you happen to be a peasant in a stark, black-and-white 16th-century Italian village, the answer is absolute and horrifying devotion. Villagers in the cinematic spot willingly sacrifice their cherished pets, prized possessions, and even loved ones, feeding them into a mysterious, pulsing "orifice" in the ground. In return, the earth rewards them with ecstatic, spurting geysers of the coveted caffeinated-and-mascarpone-laced breakfast.

It is gruesome, it is hilarious, and it is arguably one of the most memorable food and beverage marketing campaigns of the year. But beneath the layers of cinematic folklore and tongue-in-cheek blasphemy lies a calculated business strategy for a brand experiencing a high-stakes growth phase.

Main Facts: The Anatomy of the Oat Cult Phenomenon

The campaign, designed to launch Oat Cult’s new Tiramisu flavor, leans hard into the "cult" aspect of the brand’s nomenclature. Rather than playing it safe with traditional lifestyle shots of glistening oats and berries, Oat Cult and Thingy & Thingy have doubled down on absurdist, dark storytelling.

• The Creative Concept: Set in a black-and-white, pseudo-historical 16th-century Italian village, the ad chronicles a community offering increasingly unhinged sacrifices to a subterranean void in exchange for tiramisu overnight oats.
• The Masterminds: The campaign was dreamed up by the creative agency Thingy & Thingy, spearheaded by Chief Creative Officers Thais Delcanton and Darren Simpson, Head of Strategy Chris Bosher, and Designer Marc Donaldson.
• The Execution: Directed by Mike Upson with cinematography by Spike Morris, the film was brought to life by production company MindsEye, with editing by Flaura Atkinson at Stitch and post-production by 1920.
• The Financial Backdrop: This chaotic marketing blitz follows a crucial milestone for the brand—Oat Cult’s first external funding round, securing £220,000 led by Anotherway Ventures to scale its direct-to-consumer subscription model and expand its Amazon footprint.

Chronology: From Bedroom Experiment to Cinematic Cultism

To understand how a breakfast brand arrived at directing medieval peasants to throw loved ones into a hole, it is necessary to trace the trajectory of Oat Cult and the development of this specific campaign.

Phase One: Building the Cult

Founded by Ben Da Costa—a seasoned creative director who spent two decades in the advertising industry before trading pitch decks for porridge—Oat Cult was built from the ground up to challenge the sterile, wellness-obsessed clichés of the breakfast aisle. Recognizing that traditional marketing often fails to build true emotional loyalty, Da Costa infused his brand with an ironic, tongue-in-cheek cult persona. The name wasn’t just a quirky branding choice; it was a roadmap for community building.

Phase Two: The Brief and Creative Collaboration

When it came time to launch their most ambitious flavor profile yet—Tiramisu—Da Costa enlisted agency Thingy & Thingy to develop a concept that would instantly cut through the clutter. CCOs Thais Delcanton and Darren Simpson devised a narrative that pushed the brand’s "cult" premise to its logical, highly absurd extreme. Instead of a standard digital ad, they pitched a high-production, cinematic period piece.

Phase Three: Production in the Woods

Director Mike Upson stepped in to helm the project, working alongside a cast of child actors, animals, and historical reenactors in a remote forest setting. The production required striking a delicate balance between high-art cinematography (evidenced by Spike Morris’s stark black-and-white frames) and visceral, laugh-out-loud gross-out humor.

Phase Four: Investment and Launch

As post-production wrapped, Oat Cult closed its vital £220,000 investment round led by Anotherway Ventures. The capital arrived precisely when the brand needed it to handle the anticipated surge in web traffic and fulfillment demands driven by the new campaign rollout. The Tiramisu flavor officially went live on the brand’s direct-to-consumer platform, accompanied by the rollout of the short film across digital and social channels.

Supporting Data and Production Credits

To appreciate the scale and craftsmanship of what is fundamentally a commercial for overnight oats, one must look at the extensive roster of creative talent involved in bringing the vision to life. This is not a scrappy smartphone video shot in a kitchen; it is a meticulously crafted cinematic piece.

Full Production Credits

• Brand: Oat Cult (Founder: Ben Da Costa)
• Agency: Thingy & Thingy
• Chief Creative Officers: Thais Delcanton, Darren Simpson
• Head of Strategy: Chris Bosher
• Designer: Marc Donaldson
• Production Company: MindsEye
• Director: Mike Upson
• Director of Photography (DoP): Spike Morris
• Editor: Flaura Atkinson @ Stitch
• Post-Production: 1920

Financial and Distribution Metrics

• Funding Secured: £220,000 seed investment round.
• Lead Investor: Anotherway Ventures.
• Growth Focus: Scaling the brand’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) subscription base and expanding marketplace presence via Amazon.
• Product Availability: Oat Cult Tiramisu is currently available for purchase directly through oatcult.com.

Official Responses: Behind the Scenes of a Bizarre Masterpiece

Transitioning from a 20-year career on the agency side to becoming a food entrepreneur gave Oat Cult founder Ben Da Costa a unique perspective on the creative process. Relinquishing creative control, however, was easier said than done.

"I spent 20 years as a creative before I made oats, and not writing this myself was harder than I’d like to admit," admits Da Costa.

"लेकिन [However], backing creative people, whether that’s agencies, animators or someone making things in their bedroom, is part of what Oat Cult is for, and watching other people bring this world to life has been a joy. When I read the script, I knew my baby was in safe hands. Then they pushed it into a hole. I’ve still not had it back."

The sentiment is echoed by director Mike Upson, who relished the freedom to lean into the grotesque and unusual elements of the script without corporate over-sanitization watering down the punchline.

"It’s actually quite refreshing to be told by an agency to make a piece of art direction ‘more butthole-like’," Upson notes with a laugh, summarizing the collaborative ethos of the shoot.

"That kind of sums up the whole process really. It was all about making the absolute best — or strangest — creative decision and pushing that as far as we could go, especially when that took us to surprising, weird and gross places. Namely the middle of the woods, directing children, animals and a crop of Italian medieval peasants."

Implications: What This Means for FMCG Marketing

Oat Cult’s latest campaign is more than just a viral moment for social media feeds; it signals a broader shift in how Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brands are marketing to digitally native consumers who have developed a severe allergy to traditional, earnest advertising.

1. The Death of Vanilla Branding

In crowded supermarket aisles and saturated e-commerce ecosystems, being liked is no longer enough; a brand must be memorable, polarizing, and distinctive. By leaning into dark comedy and body horror tropes, Oat Cult ensures that consumers will not simply scroll past their ad. They will watch it, discuss it, share it, and—crucially—remember the product name.

2. Proof That Narrative-Driven DTC Can Compete with Giants

Small challenger brands often struggle to compete with the sheer media spending power of multinational conglomerates like Quaker or Nestlé. However, creative audacity acts as a great equalizer. By treating an ad for breakfast oats with the cinematic gravity of an A24 horror film, Oat Cult punches far above its weight class, generating earned media and organic engagement that millions in ad spend cannot buy.

3. The Power of Founder-Led Creative Risk

Because Ben Da Costa understands the agency world from the inside out, he possesses the rare founder’s courage required to greenlight a concept as wild as medieval sacrifice for porridge. Many traditional CEOs would have watered down the script out of fear of offending potential customers. Da Costa’s willingness to embrace the absurdity has instead cemented Oat Cult’s identity as an unapologetic disruptor.

Looking Ahead

As Oat Cult utilizes its recent £220,000 funding round to scale operations, expand its Amazon presence, and grow its subscriber community, the Tiramisu campaign proves that the brand has found a winning formula. Whether consumers are buying in for the nutritional value of overnight oats or simply hoping they don’t get thrown into a subterranean void by their local village elder remains to be seen. One thing, however, is certain: breakfast will never be boring again.