Amid all the Purim candy frenzy, mishloach manot deliveries, Cow Chocolate and lemon wafer games, or the historic comeback of Ben & Jerry’s, arrived a bag that looked completely ordinary but stirred up curious buzz. The natural rustling of bags, and the noise of intrigue.
Angel Bakery’s move, under the branding "Bread by Mistake," is undoubtedly a marketing strategy—undoubtedly cheeky, and pretty certainly both smart and charming. It also generates genuinely non-cynical engagement—the kind we used to see a bit more of around here, no?
This is an ordinary bread loaf, sliced thicker than usual at the bakery, now marketed outward as: "Oops, we made a mistake, we sliced it too thick, sorry, but we’re taking responsibility, and it’s written right here. There’s a limited edition of this unfortunate mishap, and we tried it—it actually works great as French toast, so go ahead, try it too. And again, our apologies."
Or in other words: "Our American-style bread is Angel Bakery’s best-selling bread. It’s known for being soft, slightly sweet, and airy. However, for some reason, right before Purim, we accidentally ended up with an enormous quantity of this bread with extra-thick slices! And honestly, we didn’t mean to. A real mistake. So we sat down to figure out what to do with all this mistakenly thick bread, and as the meeting dragged on, we got hungry. So we tasted it, and the truth is—the mistake led to a pretty great discovery. With love from Angel Bakery. Because those who don’t make mistakes, don’t learn," reads the press release.
As copywriting? Excellent. As bread? Excellent, too. As French toast? Well, that’s a third time excellent. Without any one of these elements, this whole thing would have flopped—or at the very least, wouldn’t have been interesting. But when all three work (plus, it’s perfectly soft and even vegan), it’s a marketing win that deserves attention, sparks engagement, ignites discussions and online chatter, and—above all—makes for a fantastic dinner (like this patent French toast, for example). On purpose, not by mistake.