Three weeks ago a pasta-delivery company announced they'd be giving away free pasta outside five tube stations on October 25th to celebrate World Pasta Day. This is the kind of marketingbolx that various media platforms adore, and Time Out, Metro, Secret London, AOL, MSN and the Newham Recorder were amongst those who obliged with a carb-packed write-up.
The pasta pros will be dishing out free carbs to commuters at select tube stations between 11:30am and 1:30pm on Wednesday October 25. On offer will be 1000 classic dishes including carbonara, beef shin ragu, spicy arrabbiata and wild mushroom pasta. They'll also be rebranding partaking stations with punny pasta-fied names.
It will see Farringdon transformed into Farfallingdon, Clapham Junction become Claphamellini, and Fulham Broadway change to Fusilli for the day. Plus, Tooting will rebrand as Tootelloni and Camden Town will become Camdenlloni Town.
The rebranding of tube stations infuriated manypeople. "So tacky it's embarrassing," said one. "I think it's a sad indication of the value put on London's Underground when it is left with such gimmicks to raise funds for essential maintenance of the system," said another. "Sounds like a load of old bolognaise to me," said another.
The business in question also produced a tube map showing the five renamed stations, which they circulated to interested parties and hosted on a bespoke page on their website. And my word, these are utterly appalling renamings.
Camdenlloni Town is barely pronounceable. Farfallingdon is plain contrived. But they are at least recognisable as the original name they replace, which is more than can be said for the recent 'Burberry Street' renaming debacle.
The south London contingent was far worse.
Fulsilli Broadway is indeed silly, and intriguingly not the same name that went out in the press release which was plain Fusilli. Claphamellini was meant to reference capellini, a pasta shape resembling strands of hair, but ended up as a stringy mouthful. At least Tootelloni looks a lot like tortelloni... but which station is it meant to represent?
According to the press release the rebranded station was Tooting, but that's not a tube station, it's on Thameslink. The map makes it clear it's supposed to be on the Northern line, but not whether it's Tooting Bec or Tooting Broadway. Clapham is even more ambiguous - the press release said Clapham Junction but the roundel on the map could be Clapham North, Clapham Common or Clapham South. Everything pointed towards a ballsed-up campaign.
A couple of days before the big giveaway the bespoke page on the company website disappeared, along with the invitation to "find your nearest free pasta tube station on the map". But the news media continued to remind their readers of the giveaway, so it was hard to tell if it was off or on.
I visited three of the stations yesterday lunchtime, or at least I think I did, and I can confirm that none of them had rebranded in any way and no free pasta was being given away outside. It's possible that practical considerations caused the company to withdraw, it's possible that licensing the sale of streetfood proved tougher than they expected, and it's possible that TfL screamed "you can't do that" and everything fell apart.
Whatever the reason, the good news is that none of the brand abominations actually occurred, nobody earned a pretty penne and we are not yet scraping the bottom of the sponsorship barrel. Indeed it may never have been an official TfL campaign in the first place, but I wouldn't put it pasta them.
