How do you top a marketing campaign starring a Hollywood legend? You create one starring dozens of them.

Six months after Warburtons boss Jonathan Warburton appeared on screen with Sylvester Stallone in an ad for the bakery brand, he will this weekend pair up with Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear and the rest of the crew - and have a close encounter with Miss Piggy.

A two-minute version of the ad will air in the first commercial break during Saturday’s The X Factor, and will screen in the run up to Christmas in a variety of shorter edits. Teasers in which Warburton is approached by other celebs wanting to star in its ads aired on Friday (13 November).

The £25m push focuses on the giant crumpet - 130mm wide versus the 90mm of a standard version - launched by Warburtons last month. The baker hopes consumers will top the crumpets with ingredients such as egg and bacon, and eat with a knife and fork.

The ad features a song and dance routine - The Giant Crumpet Show to the tune of The Muppet Show theme - and characters including Dr Bunsen (with a self-toasting crumpet that bursts into flames), and grumpy old men Statler and Waldorf, who complain they preferred the Stallone advert.

“Our Stallone ad generated a huge amount of interest about the business, and the challenge has been what we can do for an encore,” said Jonathan Warburton. “Many people expected us to do another Stallone ad but we want to be constantly moving - in these days of information overload, getting standout marketing of any kind is a huge challenge.”

Warburton flew to Los Angeles to shoot the ad, where the filmmakers recreated his Bolton office. “Never in my life, or career of 36 years, did I think I’d be saying I’m off to Hollywood to film a TV advert,” he said. “It was a very interesting, if bizarre, experience.”

The ad follows a £7m investment in two new plants to produce the crumpets. Warburton said he was confident the NPD would grow the crumpets market.

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