Marketing Report: Analyzing Marketing Strategies of Campbell's Soup

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Campbell's Soup's marketing strategies. It begins with an introduction to the company, its history, and its global presence. The discussion section delves into Campbell's product development initiatives, highlighting how the company adapted to changing consumer preferences by modifying existing products and introducing new flavors and packaging strategies to retain consumers. The report examines the 4 P's of marketing (product, price, promotion, and place) in the context of Campbell's Soup, emphasizing the company's focus on the millennial consumer segment and its adaptation of marketing strategies. The report also analyzes Campbell's brand strategy, including its efforts to promote fresh and healthier products, and its approach to branding. Finally, it considers the product life cycle phase and offers recommendations for future growth, such as exploring untapped markets. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of research and development for future profitability.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Product Development in Campbell’s Soup..................................................................................2
Product Packaging Strategy in Campbell’s Soup........................................................................3
4 P’s of Marketing: Campbell’s...................................................................................................3
Campbell’s Brand Strategy..........................................................................................................4
Product Life Phase.......................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Reference List..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction:
Headquartered in Camden of New Jersey, and founded back in the year of 1869,
Campbell’s Soup has come a long way in establishing itself as a recognized American company
offering a wide variety of canned soups beverages, snacks and packaged fresh foods (Campbell
Soup Company 2017). Campbell’s Soup is no longer an American company, but has emerged to
be a recognized brand operating in more than 120 countries across the globe (Campbell Soup
Company 2017). Undoubtedly, much of the company’s success is credited to how its managers
have successfully have transformed the global leadership team, besides revolutionizing
workplace culture as well as making integral strategic investments. However, what has actually
rendered the ultimate success to the company is its brand image as developed in the market,
visual design, and efficient product development process. Hence, it is important to critically
analyze the product branding and product development strategy of the company.
Discussion:
Product Development in Campbell’s Soup:
Product development is an effective strategy undertaken by companies to attract a defined
customer base through the modification of existent products, in terms of content or its
presentation. A few years back, the popularity of Campbell’s products started witnessing as a
downturn as more people wished to move from processed cereals and canned goods to more
natural, healthy and organic food. This was indeed a challenge to Campbell’s, and soon the
company made an effort to develop its existent products, in an effort to retain its clients by
offering greater variety and richness in taste. For making the bun, the company decided to no
longer use the traditional old, potato roll anymore, and instead chose to use the pretzel roll, that

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adds variety in taste (Eastlack and Rao 1989). The company has also added coffee and wine
flavor as well as fish sauce flavor to its food that can also add to its variety. The company’s
decision to sell the same, processed food with a little twist of flavor has helped in retaining
clients, who would have chosen the healthy option instead.
Product Packaging Strategy in Campbell’s Soup:
Packaging also plays an integral role in developing a product, and attracting new
consumer base. In today’s world, the companies selling canned food are experiencing a loss of
consumers as more and more consumers are becoming health-conscious. Hence, in order to
retain the consumers, the company also revised its product packaging strategy. The company’s
decision to introduce the flavor color coding system helps the consumers tastefully identify the
type of soup they wish to purchase, while allowing Campbell’s to easily broaden the product
line. Since the launch of the brand new Onion Soup with Chicken Broth, the company has
expanded to include Chicken Noodle, Creamy Chicken, Double Noodle, Vegetable and Regular
Onion (Wilkins 2014). By offering a greater choice to the consumers, and adding variety to its
packets, the company has managed to attract the attention of greater number of consumers, and
remain relevant in a competitive market.
4 P’s of Marketing: Campbell’s:
For any company, in order to achieve profitable customer relationship, it is important to
ensure that the price, product, promotion, and place it is launched at, must be aligned with the
specific customer needs or expectations. As far as Campbell’s is concerned, the company is
offering comfy food, one can have on the go, while also managing the busy professional life of
today’s world. Hence, the consumer segment of the company is comprising of the busy

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millennial, who would not only be attracted to the variety of tasty, proceeded food, but would
also opt for the time-consuming way of having food. However, the company is an old and classic
one, and hence to appeal to the new customer base, Campbell’s needed to re-define its product
image. Consequently, the company not only needed to add a few new tastes derived from the
taste of the food specialty of different nations like Brazil and India, but it also introduced its new
clunky cans for sleek, microwaveable pouches that fit Millennial’s need for convenience,
portability, and fast preparation (Phillips et al. 2014). The company understood that the Gen Y
consumers would not get attracted to the traditional Italian and Japanese ingredients, and hence it
rightly decided to introduce new recipes inspired by the Caribbean, Middle East and African
nations.
Since the company targets millennial, the company no longer requires to stick to a high-
price strategy expected to result in product differentiation of the classy brand. The company has
developed its brand image as one which goes with the active, on the go lifestyle and thus the
price has been kept low, so that the millennial can keep on consuming more and more of the
products. Since the target audience of the company comprises of the millennial, the company
decided not to promote its products via the traditional digital media tools. It does not advertise on
television or radio, and has adopted the online marketing strategy. Campbell’s new line of soup,
namely the Campbell’s Go, has Facebook as well as Tumblr pages, and also the company
partnerships with BuzzFeed and Spotify whereby it hopes that this will convey the personality
of the soup and appeal to its target audience.
Campbell’s Brand Strategy:

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As the demand for fresh foods continue to threaten the market of processed and canned
food products, Campbell’s has started branding its products as more original, fresh and healthier
than before. This accounts for the company’s efforts to remove the various artificial colors and
flavors from its products, its acquisition of organic brands such as Bolthouse Farms and Plum,
and its new tagline “Made for Real, Real Life”. Besides, in its advertisements, the company is
also endorsing its products through a gay couple, thereby staying relevant amongst the millennial
(Mohrman and Stuerke 2014).
Product Life Phase:
While discussing about Campbell’s, it should be noted that the US food industry has
already reached its maturity phase, whereby it would b difficult for Campbell’s to generate
substantial profit. Hence, the company should not confine itself to the markets it is already
trading in, and rather start exploring the untapped markets in South America, where it can
produce more innovative tastes and varieties through strategic alliances and joint ventures
(Brownridge 2014).
Conclusion:
To conclude, it can be stated that Campbell’s Soup has indeed emerged to be one of the
most recognized company in the industry of processed food. Although the company does
encounter moderate competition from the substitutes, such as natural and organic food, it has still
managed to remain relevant in the market through effective product development strategies.
However, it can be recommended that through effective investment in research and development
activities as well as by divesting unnecessary product lines, the company can further enhance its
profitability in future.

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Reference List:
Brownridge, S.W., 2014. Canning Plum Organics: The Avant-Garde Campbell Soup Company
Acquisition and Delaware Public Benefit Corporations Wandering Revlon-Land. Del. J. Corp.
L., 39, p.703.
Campbell Soup Company. 2017. Home. [online] Available at:
https://www.campbellsoupcompany.com/ [Accessed 2 Sep. 2017].
Eastlack Jr, J.O. and Rao, A.G., 1989. Advertising experiments at the campbell soup
company. Marketing Science, 8(1), pp.57-71.
Mohrman, M.B. and Stuerke, P.S., 2014. Shareowners' Equity at Campbell Soup: How can
Equity be Negative?. Accounting Education, 23(4), pp.386-405.
Phillips, B.J., McQuarrie, E.F. and Griffin, W.G., 2014. How visual brand identity shapes
consumer response. Psychology & Marketing, 31(3), pp.225-236.
Wilkins, M., 2014. When and why brand names in food and drink?. Adding Value: brands and
marketing in food and drink, pp.15-40.