From a food brand to a lifestyle brand
For over 50 years, Tilda has stood for quality. The finest grains. No shortcuts. A brand that has always done things properly. Trusted, respected and loved by the people who knew it.
But as competition intensified and Tilda expanded beyond dry rice into new categories, the brand needed to play a bigger role in more people's lives.
The ambition wasn't simply to remain the nation's leading rice brand. It was to become one of its most-loved food brands.
Uncovering what Tilda had always stood for
Everything started with our Brand Reset™ Programme.
A deep strategic dive that brought together data, consumer insight and perspectives from stakeholders across the business. Different disciplines came together to build a shared understanding of the brand, the opportunity and ultimately Tilda's future role.
What we uncovered was a simple truth; Food is one of the everyday ways people show they care. And when people really care, they choose the best. They don't cut corners. They take pride in the details.
This was a space Tilda could credibly own. Because quality had never simply been a product claim. It was a mindset. A standard. A way of approaching food, family, flavour and everyday life.
Tilda means you give a damn
The challenge wasn't trust. Tilda already had that. The real challenge was indifference.
Most people don't wake up thinking deeply about rice. Unless we gave them a reason not to, they would simply reach for what was familiar, convenient or close to hand.
So we needed to shift the role of the brand.
We repositioned Tilda as the rice brand for people who care about getting the most out of life. People who know that life's richness isn't found only in the big moments, but in the everyday ones too - cooking for family, sharing meals, taking pride in doing things properly.
Tilda became a symbol of a broader attitude. A belief that the little things matter. That if something is worth doing, it's worth doing properly. That you should ‘Live Like You Mean It’.
A new mission for the brand
‘Live Like You Mean It’ wasn't created as a campaign line. It became a new mantra for the business. A belief that connected Tilda's product superiority to something more human and emotionally meaningful. Choosing Tilda became more than a functional decision. It became a reflection of how people wanted to live.
The platform gave Tilda a clear North Star. One capable of stretching across the portfolio, inspiring innovation and helping the brand show up with greater confidence, consistency and emotional resonance. It became a unifying idea for the entire business.
A launch like we meant it
The launch needed to generate as much excitement externally as the new positioning was creating internally. This wasn't just the arrival of a campaign. It was the public debut of a transformed brand.
A joyful TVC kicked things off – following a father and daughter cooking with all they’ve got as family photographs around the home sprang to life, MCing to a bespoke garage track celebrating people who cook like they mean it. Then the campaign rolled out across VOD, social, print, POS, podcasts and digital, creating an unmistakably Tilda experience wherever people encountered the brand.
But the transformation extended far beyond advertising.
We gave Tilda a bold, colourful new look and feel to match its new attitude - refreshing the visual identity, tone of voice and typography to bring more confidence, energy and distinctiveness to every touchpoint.
Most importantly, the work gave the business a clearer role for the brand and a more distinctive way of behaving across products, audiences and occasions.
A confident new chapter for the UK's number one rice brand. Not just the best rice. A brand for people who Live Like They Mean It.
