Meet the queer creative behind M&S Food’s viral social media success (EXCLUSIVE)
M&S occupies a special place in British hearts. Here, David Parke, PR & social media manager for M&S Food, discusses the power of using humour in branding and why food can be camp
In modern Britain, few brands occupy the unique cultural territory that M&S Food now does.
As PR & social media manager for M&S Food, David Parke has spent more than six years helping steer one of Britain’s most recognisable institutions through the evolution of modern communications – propelling the brand into the era of “buzz marketing”, where storytelling, social media, celebrity, humour and cultural instinct increasingly operate as one interconnected ecosystem.
This is a world where a pig-shaped sweet can become celebrity-adjacent intellectual property. Products no longer simply launch into stores – they drop as entertainment releases. Parke articulates that somewhere between comfort, camp and cultural conversation, M&S Food has become less a traditional supermarket and more a form of emotional infrastructure for an increasingly anxious nation.
Openly LGBTQ+ and deeply fluent in the language of modern pop culture, Parke speaks with conviction about the art of communication, with nods to Ab Fab, Polari, Michelle Visage and the emotional role brands now occupy in people’s lives. This is not just a business feature; it is a wider meditation on storytelling itself, looking at how audiences connect, how brands build emotional resonance and why queer sensibilities may be uniquely attuned to the cultural codes of modern communications. Perhaps our queer history holds the answer as to why so many of us thrive in the industry? We sat down with Parke to talk about queer instinct, emotional branding, storytelling – and why food is inherently camp.
Attitude: What drew you into PR and communications as a discipline?
David Parke: I did languages at university – Russian and German. For our year abroad, they gave us the choice of either going to Vladivostok in the far east of Russia, or Berlin. So that was obviously a tough decision. Berlin it was.
A year abroad forces you into working on your communication skills in another language. In retrospect, that was perhaps foreshadowing what was to come in my career. After graduating, I looked at both advertising and PR, but honestly, I didn’t understand the distinction between them at first, because nobody really explains it to you unless you study it formally. My only understanding of PR at that point was Ab Fab. I remember one of the application questions for my first PR job was something like: “What does PR mean to you?” And I quoted that iconic Ab Fab line: “PR, darling. People, places, concepts, Lulu.” Ever since then, I’ve PR’d people, places and concepts, but I’ve not PR’d Lulu yet.
PR always used to have a reputation for brutal treatment of interns and juniors. How was it starting out for you?
The agency I started out at were very good, actually – they had a graduate scheme. It was very structured, and it had the backing of the HR team and lots of senior people. It was a mixture of “you are part of this lovely scheme,” with all manner of things put on for your development, but also “we are absolutely throwing you in at the deep end.” So, I did have to do some of the more Devil Wears Prada-inspired tasks as well, including being sent out half an hour before a launch event to source some robotic fish for a client. And I managed it, you’ll be pleased to hear.
How much has the industry changed since those early days?
When I started in PR, it was the day of the “sell-in”. People would pick up the phone, and you’d be calling journalists, blocking out several hours in the morning to sell your stories to top contacts. Now, it’s mostly done over email, WhatsApp, even Instagram DMs, which is brilliant. It removes the terror of having to pick up the phone and call the Telegraph news desk to sell a story about robotic fish.
I think the relationship between PR and journalist has shifted fundamentally as well. When I first started out over a decade ago, it wasn’t that PRs were necessarily a nuisance, but we were always the ones proactively contacting journalists. Now, it feels a lot more balanced: I would say the amount of time I spend pitching versus being asked for things is a lot more balanced compared to when I started out.
This is an excerpt from a feature appearing in issue 371 of Attitude magazine, on sale in print and digital now. Order Attitude magazine issue 371 in print now, or in digital on the links below on Apple News+ and the Attitude app.