The history books speak of “soup kitchens” during the Great Depression. Americans didn’t get the memo, apparently, during the recent Great Recession. The Campbell Soup Company just reported second quarter financials, and its soup sales were off the cliff. At current course and speed, Campbell’s is a candidate for a future “how would you save” feature post.
For fiscal 2009, which ended last July, during the worst of the economic period, Campbell’s ready-to-serve soup sales increased just 4%. In the next three months they fell 7%, only to fall another 18% in the most recent quarter. Talk about a leaky can.
Campbell’s can’t point to a secular trend because, with market share north of 60%, it basically has no one to blame but itself. And to come out of a recession reducing marketing support (which Campbell did to goose margins and please Wall Street) is suicide for a branded consumer good.
A marketing investment Campbell’s didn’t cut, however, is its near-comical “Game Plan for the Busy Man” with Troy Aikman. This long-running infatuation with football is cognitive dissonance on steroids.
What could be less likely than NFLers chomping down on hot soup in the locker room? In uniform? How about the TV spots/ web videos of Aikman hunkering over a tiny bowl of soup? As if that’s enough to fill up a guy 6’12” tall, tipping the scales at 250 pounds. He’d have to eat the actual can to get enough iron.
Over the top is redefined by the Game Plan itself (“great tips and advice” blah blah blah). Next time you see a guy lifting weights, ask him if had a bowl of soup to get ready for his workout, or if he plans to have one after hitting the steam room.
A can of Campbell’s Fully Loaded barely cracks 200 calories. That’s less than 10% of daily intake. What meal might that be? Where did all those soup shops go that were all the rage for lunchtime, circa 1998? We’re hungry, dammit.
Campbell’s has gone a hundred different directions on soup. Maybe the stuff with Moms and Kids is working. But it’s time to admit defeat on the current strategy for men.
We’re big. We’re bad. Our soup should be the same.
