With little to no warning, the marketing team at BBC Australia are opening a Bluey Duck Cake Cafe pop-up at Bondi Junction Westfield in Sydney.
Families will be able to step into Bluey’s world where they will be able to meet Bluey herself and decorate their own Ducking Cupcakes. Tickets are free and available via ballot from Friday morning at the Bluey website.
The theme of the pop-up is inspired by the iconic duck cake featured in The Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Children’s Birthday Cake Book.’ It is featured in a season 2 episode of Bluey, titled ‘Duck Cake,’ in which her sister Bingo wants a duck cake for her birthday.
With the birthday cake book celebrating its own 45th anniversary this year, the timing seemed right to stage the duck cake cafe pop-up. Appearing at the cafe to launch the pop-up will be 80 year-old Agnes Lee, the original Duck Cake creator who invented it back in 1980 while working in the Australian Women’s Weekly test kitchen.
The duck cake, as seen in the episode
Ahead of the event, BBC Studios’ Bluey marketing lead Madeleine Santos had a chat with Mediaweek about the event and the role it plays in the overall marketing strategy of Bluey in the lead-up towards the 2027 feature film release.
“The germ of the idea was generated on the BBC Studios side through brainstorming with our local brand team, along with our global brand team,” explained Santos. “We have an overarching kind of loose brand theme this year, which is called Let’s Play Chef.”
“It’s all about the food, the cooking, those memories in the kitchen through to the Bluey brand itself. As we sort of talked about it more and more, it came to life even more.”
Connected to the Let’s Play Chef brand theme is Bluey Cookalongs, a live action TV series featuring families making food together based on food featured in the cartoon show. It is streaming now on ABC iView.
The Duck Cake and its status in Australia fits really well with the spirit of families getting together to cook. It represents a multi-generational cultural story where recipes from that cook book play a role in the lore of so many Australian families.
“People watch that episode, and so many people relate to that moment of having the Australian Women’s Weekly cookbook, picking the duck cake,” Santos said before delivering a well executed pun: “We like the layers and the richness of the storytelling. There’s so much rich storytelling that we can pull from.
“We all feel like very proud custodians as well. So we want to imbue those core values and that brand DNA in everything we do through our activations throughout, licencing collaborations, our live events, all the ways that we bring Bluey to life off the screen, as well as on the screen.”
Due to the global success of Bluey, the marketing calendar to promote the brand is full and multi-faceted. A big part of the year-long campaigning to support the show involves activations like this weekend’s pop-up.
“It is about bringing the world of Bluey to life for our fans in kind of innovative and new ways,” Santos said. “We’ve had some great success with previous real-world activations and partnerships in previous years. For example, when we brought Hammer Barn, the fictional hardware store, to life for real life with Bunnings last year and we partnered with them again this year.
“We also brought the Bluey Christmas episode to life a couple of years ago across the Myer Christmas windows. That was a really special moment for the fans as well. Last year, we also rebranded two of Brisbane’s iconic ferries, their CityCats, and created the Bluey and Bingo CityDogs.
“Fans being able to engage with the brand in these tangible ways really deepens that emotional connection that they have with the brand, and it also allows us to really bring to life the storytelling around those activations as well.”
The Bluey CityDogs in Brisbane
It may surprise anyone with a little person living in their home where Bluey is on the TV still non-stop, but there is currently a Bluey content drought. The show stopped being produced over a year ago, with the final episode airing in April, 2024. There won’t be any original Bluey until the debut of the feature-length movie in August 2027.
More than ever before, the marketing team at the BBC are needed to continue stoking enthusiasm in the Bluey brand.
“In the lead up to the movie, we’re working on a lot of other activities and activations that fans can continue to engage and interact with the Bluey brand on. That’s across marketing experiences and activations like this. It’s across our live events and live entertainment. Also new products and licensing launches as well,” Santos said.