Butterkist colour-coded its popcorn range to escape the 'sea of red' on shelf

Butterkist, a popcorn brand, needed shelf stand-out and clearer flavour navigation: research showed shoppers struggled to identify variants even though red represented only one of them, the core toffee flavour.

Colour-code every flavour so the shelf stops being a 'sea of red' — the core toffee variant no longer owns all the red.

A softer, hand-drawn wordmark kept inside the brand's heart symbol; type for product descriptors chosen to 'represent the movement of the popping corn'; food language — 'crunchy', 'delicious', 'simply' — introduced on-pack for the first time. The new look rolled into Asda before hitting supermarkets nationwide.

Rolled out at Asda in February 2017 ahead of a national supermarket rollout; no sales figures were reported.

In February 2017, popcorn brand Butterkist launched a rebrand and new packaging by Chilli UK, built around a finding from research groups: consumers experienced the old packs as a 'sea of red' and struggled to navigate the brand or identify flavours — even though red represented just one variant, the core toffee flavour. The fix was architectural: different flavours got their own colour-coding for clearer differentiation and better shelf stand-out.

The redesign modernised without erasing. The wordmark was redrawn by hand, softer and warmer, but retained within the brand's heart symbol; the type for product descriptors was chosen because it 'represents the movement of the popping corn', adding energy to the front of pack. Food language — 'crunchy', 'delicious', 'simply' — appeared on-pack for the first time.

'We're making the Butterkist brand softer and warmer but we're also recognising that it's a fun brand with a lot of personality and modernising the whole look by introducing these new colours', Chilli UK managing director David Whittle said. The new look rolled out in Asda first, before a nationwide supermarket rollout.

The insight came from watching real shoppers fail, not from brand nostalgia — the 'sea of red' finding named the problem precisely.

Modernising did not mean erasing: the heart symbol and hand-drawn warmth stayed while the range architecture changed.

The packs carry personality — popping-corn type, food language — while doing the unglamorous job of flavour navigation.

Range confusion is a colour problem before it is a marketing problem: when every variant shares the hero colour, shoppers cannot see the choice you are offering.

The new look reached Asda in February 2017 and was set to roll out to supermarkets nationwide; no commercial results were published.