Campbell's Red & White Condensed Soup Case Study @ craigcooper.com






	Despite their iconic status and huge market share, Campbell's Red & White condensed soups – Tomato, Vegetable, Chicken Noodle and Cream of Mushroom – had been in decline for years. Consistent advertising against product news (most of it contrived) had eroded brand equity and loyalty; the emotional benefits of soup had been ignored in favour of product attributes. Despite high awareness, consumers could not clearly articulate what Campbell's meant to them. To rejuvenate interest in these key products, it was deemed necessary to promote frequency of use (through eating and cooking behaviour) or – as Campbell's put it – to get people to eat “one more bowl.”


	A television campaign as well as print (recipe) ads were developed. This work struck a delicate balance between past and present, retaining all the warm n' fuzzy values that Campbell's has come to represent but at the same time bumping Campbell's bodily into the present by infusing a decidedly contemporary sense of humour.


	In focus groups, the campaign tested very well with consumers, elevating their interest in Campbell's both as soup for eating and for use as an ingredient in recipes. Even still, in the real-world marketplace, Campbell's would've been happy if we'd simply managed to slow the decline of Red & White. Instead, sales volume actually rose by 1.8% – a number that at first blush may seem modest. However, considering, that Red & White had been declining for many years over the course of many marketing efforts, the turn-around was deemed monumental at Campbell's. In fact, no Campbell's organization in the world had been able to achieve said goal. Diane Teer and Joe Adams (our senior clients) won the coveted Magellan Award for the campaign and resulting business growth. (The Magellan is awarded to the one country in Campbell's worldwide network that "charts a new course.") Indeed, unaided awareness of Campbell's advertising reached its highest point in 10 years. To thank us, Campbell's took out a full page ad on the back of Marketing magazine (Canada's equivalent to Advertising Age) after we won several Golds at the Bessies (think Clios). But even that pales compared to one other result that seems worthy of mention. In addition to sales and awards, our TV spots also generated that most rare of consumer responses: fan mail.


	On the plus side, we had an iconic brand with which to work – one probably second only to Coca Cola. On the other hand, strategy and media (TV for soup and print for cooking) had already been determined by the time my partner Briony and I got involved. In fact, there were four strategies; one for each of the different soups. These strategies were less than inspiring, being of the generic seen-it-before packaged goods variety.
	Tomato: Warms me physically and emotionally Vegetable: Wholesome, fun food for my family Cream of Mushroom: A wonderful taste experience that's an everyday indulgence Chicken Noodle: Food that makes me feel good
	There was also the time-honoured yet strategically meaningless Mmm Mmm Good! tag line. Having grown up working on Volkswagen, however, I'm a big believer in the turn-your-weakness-into-strength approach. Thus, the apparent handcuffs of the preordained Mmm Mmm Good! could actually free us to turn four different strategies into one campaign by using style and tone-of-voice alone as the glue. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention another set of handcuffs – one we had placed on ourselves. Although, I had never worked on Campbell's before, I had certainly worked on a lot of packaged goods and I knew that packaged goods clients like – no, loooove – to see their product. So I said to Briony, “We're going to write good scripts, but we're only going to write good scripts that can have either a can or a bowl of soup in the foreground throughout.”
	When I was a kid learning to swim, one of the lessons that impressed me most was the caution that if you ever fell into fast moving waters, you should swim with the current and not against it. The goal is to get great work produced. You need the client's trust to do that. And you earn that trust by working with them, not against them. Later, once that trust is earned, you can introduce a wider range of creative ideas.
	Our other creative mission was to create ads that brought Campbell's decidedly into the present yet without foregoing any of the warm ‘n cuddly power of the brand's heritage. One foot in the past and one in the present, if you will. Now before I had creatively grown up as a copywriter on Volkswagen, I had biologically grown up as a kid on MAD magazine. And I believe this campaign represents the ultimate victory of MAD's satirical subversion over one of its favourite targets: the television commercial. Stuck with generic strategies, I said, “What if we took each strategy's benefit to the nth degree?” Back in the day, Soup & Jamb would've shown a kid growing tall eating Campbell's soup and that would be that. But from the mind of the MAD-influenced copywriter, the kid grows so tall he smacks his head on the door jamb. I didn't realize it at the time but shades of MAD's TV Commercials We'd Like To See! CONTINUED






	Thus by creating our own recipes of classic, warm 'n fuzzy Campbell's-esque scenarios and adding a pinch of good ol' subversion, we were we able to create spots that made us happy campers. But we weren't the only ones. I knew we really got it right when I showed the finished spots to Campbell's president Andrew Hughson. His eyes lit up and he said, “Wow. I never thought we could say the same old thing in such a fresh new way.” Bingo.



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