Tesco launches ‘Now We’re Cooking’ campaign after Channel 4’s Diversity in Advertising Award Win

Tesco, with BBH London and WPP Media’s EssenceMediacom, has today unveiled its winning campaign for Channel 4’s Diversity in Advertising Award 2025/26.

The annual competition, which awards £1 million worth of advertising space across Channel 4’s portfolio to the winning entry, encourages greater and more authentic representation within UK TV advertising. The theme for a consecutive year was ‘Inclusive by Design’, and Tesco’s entry responded not only with an accessible advertising campaign, but also with a plan to remove some of the barriers to cooking faced by disabled people.

Recognising that millions of disabled people are excluded by traditional online recipes, ‘Now We’re Cooking’ is designed to make cooking more accessible and inclusive, helping more of us cook with confidence, a meaningful embodiment of Tesco’s ‘Every Little Helps’ brand promise.

This is brought to life in BBH London’s 60-second launch film, which is set in a vast test kitchen TV studio and opens with a simple question: “Need anything from Tesco?”

The stars – a cast of cooks with a range of disabilities – don’t hold back. They call out ways that the world of cooking hasn’t been designed for them, and what would help make the experience better. As Tesco colleagues respond with British Sign Language (BSL) translation and audio description, the workstations come alive with the sights and sounds of food being prepared. Then to the audience in a voiceover and with captions, Tesco says: “We know cooking needs to be more accessible. So we created tesco.com/accessible-recipes.”

BBH London worked with The Diversity Standards Collective (DSC) and the disability-founded talent and production agency With Not For to ensure the film was built to be inclusive from the ground up. Directed by Alan Masferrer through ProdCo, it features 70-foot screens displaying open captions, entertaining audio description, clear typography and high-contrast visuals. Even the pace of the editing and sound design have been carefully considered to make a film that is both striking and accessible.

Channel 4 chose the ‘Inclusive by Design’ theme for 2025/26 to address a staggering gap in the market. According to the RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People) more than 18 million people are deaf, live with hearing loss or have tinnitus (1), while the Royal National Institute of Blind People figures indicate that over two million people are living with sight loss (2). That means nearly 20% of the population are currently not able to easily access or understand general ads.

In addition, research with The Diversity Standard Collective revealed that these communities often cook more intuitively with their senses or are forced to memorise recipes because current digital formats are inaccessible (3). And while AI-generated captions are often available, these can scramble technical cooking instructions into frustrating nonsense.

The campaign for ‘Now We’re Cooking’ launches with 100 recipes all adapted to meet the latest inclusive standards, including measurements written in full, for e-reader legibility and specific timings rather than visual cues. The recipes were chosen because they are highly searched for and cover a variety of meals and dietary needs.

The recipes can be downloaded as an accessible ebook or an audio file or requested in Braille, all at Tesco’s Accessible Recipes, created by Cedar Communications. They are also available using Alexa, the Amazon digital assistant, with social versions in development. Tesco will also be supporting the initiative in its magazine, and a new range of adaptive cooking tools will be available to buy through Tesco Marketplace in partnership with Parkinson’s UK.

‘Now We’re Cooking’ makes its debut on Thursday 21 May during Taskmaster. It will also run exclusively on Channel 4 initially. In parallel, the campaign will be amplified via OOH. The media plan was developed by EssenceMediacom UK.

Murray Bisschop, UK Marketing Director at Tesco, said: “We work hard to make Tesco a place where everyone is welcome. We are grateful to Channel 4 for their support and the opportunity for us to try and change the status quo. This campaign is about rethinking how we help people cook in ways that work for them, and shows how we can be inclusive by design, with recipes, adaptive cooking tools and a supportive shopping experience both in our stores and online.”

Holly Fallows and Charlotte Watmough, Associate Creative Directors at BBH, said: “The kitchen isn’t inclusive for everyone. We learnt that for those with sight or hearing loss, the ‘standard’ recipe format is a barrier, not a bridge. As one of the nation’s most visited recipe sites, Tesco Real Food, receiving over 1.6 million unique monthly visitors, Tesco had a responsibility to change the status quo. This isn’t just about an ad; it’s about redesigning the utility of cooking authentically and recognising the importance of detail.”

Amy Jenkins, Sales Leader at Channel 4, said: “Over the ten years we’ve been running the Diversity in Advertising Award we’ve seen some important strides forward to advertising becoming more inclusive, with clear evidence of its positive impact on both our clients’ business objectives and viewers, as well as some iconic and creative ads. Tesco’s focus on the cooking experience and commitment to creating accessible recipes further emphasises that inclusive practices must be embedded from the outset, rather than considered as an afterthought. It showcases the impact of small adjustments in unifying the experience of cooking and also consuming the advert. Thanks to BBH London, EssenceMediacom and of course Tesco for a great partnership. We look forward to continuing to work with the industry to further champion inclusive and accessible advertising.”

Natalie Cummins, WPP Media President at EssenceMediacom said: “From the outset, this work was about making sure inclusion wasn’t something added on at the end, but considered at every stage of how the campaign would be experienced. ‘Now We’re Cooking’ challenged us to think not only about where the campaign ran but also how it could be genuinely usable and accessible for as many people as possible. It’s a brilliant example of what can happen when media, creativity and purpose are designed together.”

1 - Prevalence of deafness and hearing loss - RNID

2 - Key information and statistics on sight loss in the UK - RNIB

3 - The Diversity Standards Collective and Tesco research, October 2025

CREDITS

Campaign title: ‘Now we’re cooking’

Advertising agency: BBH London

CCO: Felipe Serradourada Guimaraes

Associate Creative Directors: Charlotte Watmough and Holly Fallows

Creatives: Lucy Johnstone and Grace Chambers

Client Managing Director: James Rice

Deputy Chief Strategy Officer: Saskia Jones

Business Lead: Tori Meadows

Account Director: Jenny McHale and Olivia Harte

Account Manager: Charlie Morgan and Ollie Withell

Account Executive: George Moody-Stuart

Strategy Director: Arabella Saunders

Senior Strategist: Alexi Hall

Agency film producer: Charlotte Kirk

Agency assistant film producer: Peter Wiltshire

Agency Experience Producer: Lucy Budd, Tash Allen

Agency print producer: Rachel Clarke

Head of Design: Stephanie McArdle

Design Director: Miguel Sousa

Designer: Phoebe Kenny

Design Director: Oded Shein

Motion Designer: Lucy Russell-Bates

Design Director: Miriam Menendez

Production company: Prodco

Director: Alan Masferrer

DOP: Albert Salas

Producer: Tom Farley

Editor/s: Amanda James

Post-production company: Time Based Arts

Post-production producer: Jo Gutteridge

2D lead artist: André Bittencourt

Grade: Time Based Arts

Colourist: Simone Grattarola

Sound studio: String & Tins

Sound engineer: Adam Smyth & Kaspar Broyd

Music company: Black Sheep Music

Music composer: The Elements

Music supervisor: Daniel Olaifa and Hywel Evans

Studio Production Manager: Paul Floyd

Studio Artwork: Dave Walsh

Recipe Book Production: Royal National Institute of Blind People & Ink Print Solutions Ltd.

Media agency: EssenceMediacom

Media planner: Lauren McGurran & Chandni Moda

Community research partners: The Diversity Standards Collective (DSC)

Production disability consultants: With Not For

Content agency: Cedar Communications