John Thornton Innocent resignation letter

Source: Surreal

At the time of writing, Thornton’s resignation post had amassed 2.5 million views on LinkedIn

Healthy cereal startup Surreal has appointed John Thornton as senior creative.

Thornton joins the business from his previous role as copywriter & social media manager at Innocent.

During his four-year stint at Innocent, Thornton was responsible for various viral social media stunts, such as sparking a widespread debate over whether or not Innocent’s Bolt From The Blue juice was in fact green, and drawing the ire of concerned Twitter users for promoting Conker Milk, a potentially poisonous spoof innovation.

Thornton yesterday announced his move to Surreal by posting a photo of himself standing next to a “gigantic” two-metre letter of resignation on LinkedIn.

According to Surreal, the post – which Thornton joked was the “biggest” fmcg industry resignation of late – had already accumulated 2.5 million views at the time of writing.

Given his experience at Innocent, it was “no surprise” that Thornton “chose to go out with one final stunt”, said Surreal.

Thornton said: “I had four fun years at Innocent smoothies, but it was time to see if the grass is greener – sorry, bluer – on the other side, and as a cereal addict, I couldn’t resist when Surreal came calling.”

Surreal co-founder Kit Gammell said he was “excited and kind of scared for all the breakfast mischief John’s going to cause”.

“I’ve told him that if he ever quits Surreal an email will suffice,” he said.

The non-HFSS cereal brand – which is the brainchild of Gammell and Jac Chetland, formerly Vita Coco’s senior brand manager and sales director – entered the market late last year.