Coronation Street characters to be shown starving to death as Brexit ad campaign uses product placement

The government’s ‘Get ready for Brexit’ campaign which launches this week will take full advantage of product placement regulations and depict characters in Coronation Street coping with the effects of a no-deal Brexit.

A raft of new Brexit adverts will include product placement in some of the nation’s favourite television programmes.

“I have instructions from the Prime Minister himself,” said campaign manager Michael Gove.

“What better way to get the message across to the great unwashed than by using one of their idiotic soap operas?

“People who live in funny little houses and spend all their disposable income in the pub need to realise that their lifestyles are about to change – Coronation Street is the perfect vehicle for that.”

Producer Simon Williams described the sort of thing viewers can expect to see.

“Our fans are used to seeing product placement – the branch of Costa at the end of the street for example – so it shouldn’t be too jarring for them to see an on-screen vision of no-deal.

“We’ll start gently by having the corner shop run out of fresh fruit and vegetables. A fight will break out between characters over who gets the single available orange.

“As residents become increasingly hungry the cat from the title sequence will be hunted, killed and eaten.

“One of the big storylines is that Ken Barlow will suffer a heart attack shortly after his 80th birthday. With no ambulance available ‘because of Brexit’ Ken will end his tenure as the Street’s longest-serving resident by dying in agony on his living room floor.

“Instead of a funeral his friends and family devour him raw – sad, but grateful for the protein.

“They eat in silence, having developed a taste for human flesh and knowing that any one of them could be next…”