Because I’m something of a newshound, I came across a press release on the Reuters site the other day, the headline of which was this: “Campbell Soup dropping ‘soup’ in name to become ‘The Campbell’s Company‘”. The drift of the release was this:
Campbell Soup is dropping “soup” from its name to become “The Campbell’s Company” … a pivot symbolizing the company’s shift to other packaged food such as jarred sauces like Rao’s and Goldfish snacks … Campbell’s is focusing on 16 top brands across its meals and beverages and snacking division including Goldfish, V8 beverages and Prego sauces … Campbell’s was the first to sell canned soup more than a century ago. The company’s cans later were featured in iconic pop art by Andy Warhol … the company will require soup sales to remain stable, [but] as the U.S. population ages, soup sales may rise because older people eat more soup than younger generations … Campbell’s … expects [Goldfish] crackers to become its largest brand by its 2027 fiscal year.
Because I’m also a marketing guy, Campbell’s decision to shoot itself in the foot reminded me of The Great Tropicana Repackaging Debacle. Someone close to the mess told me at the time that regular Tropicana consumers couldn’t find the products they wanted because the packaging was so different shoppers didn’t recognize them on the shelves. What frustrated me most about that fiasco is that nobody at Tropicana thought to call me before they started shooting at their feet. If they’d given me a buzz, I would have told them if they had $50 million to burn, they could have just given it to me. I’d have been happy to take the rest of my life off. And I wouldn’t even have said, “I told you so.”
An Irishman Walks Into a Bar …
The Campbell’s release also reminded me of an evening in 2004. I was at the Whistle Post Tavern in Conyers, Georgia, drinking with a handful of folks from a client company and a bar full of regulars. There was a television above the bar tuned to a local news station. A story came on about an apparently well-known matriarch from the area who’d just passed away. Her name was Campbell. As the newscaster was reading the story, I lowered my head to the bar as if I were distraught and said, “Oh, no.”
One of the people at the bar spotted me and said, loudly enough so everyone else at the bar could hear, “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
With the story still in progress, I pointed to the TV and said, “She was the woman who invented soup.”
Half the people looked at me in disbelief. The other half bolted for the supermarkets to stock up on soup.
The Morals
There are two morals to this story. The first is this, whether you are Campbell’s Soup or anyone else: Quit while you’re ahead (aka leave well enough alone).
The second is from Marvin Gaye: People say believe half of what you see, son, and none of what you hear — especially if you hear it from an Irishman.
