Challenge

As market leader, Butterkist had sat at the heart of the home movie moment for decades. Yet growing competition from new and innovative snacks meant Butterkist was appearing old-fashioned and less relevant - a nostalgic cinema treat.

Solution

As a product, popcorn had taken on a new meaning in culture. No longer was it seen as merely a snack for movie nights in; now, it had become a short-hand for moments of unmissable drama, wherever they might appear. Recognising this new meaning for our product and how quickly it was becoming part of the digital vernacular through the popcorn emoji, we embarked on a mission to make Butterkist ‘own’ these moments of unmissable drama. To capitalise on our product’s new place in culture, we popped up in moments when the whole nation was reaching for the metaphorical popcorn. 

First, we weighed in on the ‘Partygate’ scandal unfolding in Westminster with an ad van showing how Butterkist – just like the rest of the nation – was ‘Here for the Drama’. This political drama proved to be the perfect opportunity for us to create that association in people’s minds – and had admirers waiting in anticipation for where we’d pop up next. But these admirers didn’t have to wait long. Three months later, we were back with another unmissable piece of communication on another unmissable cultural moment: the ‘Wagatha Christie’ court case. Here, as newspapers scrambled to cover all the juicy goings-on between Coleen and Rebekah, and others commented on the courtroom sketches published of the two WAGs, we popped up with a courtroom sketch of our own, appearing right alongside the coverage of the trial in The Metro.

Our third foray into culture’s most unmissable moments came in July when Butterkist once again got involved in the drama, this time for Love Island’s Casa Amor. Anticipating a true popcorn moment, with viewers waiting for it all to kick off, we took Butterkist’s most recognisable asset – its red heart – and broke it in half to show how, once again, it was time to #GograbtheButterkist.

Our latest piece for Butterkist tapped into the Lionesses’ momentous Euro 2022 final. Here, we took Lion look-a-like popcorn kernels and used them to show our support for the upcoming drama due to unfold at Wembley that Sunday. Once again, we galvanised the nation to

#GograbtheButterkist

Results

Our PartyGate stunt drove over 88 million OTS and contributed to a 5% rise in prompted awareness and consideration the following month. Meanwhile, our WagathaChristie tactical ad earned 130,000 organic impressions, whilst our Love Island ad earned over 2 million unique impressions on Twitter and 28,000 engagements.