That was my main message for Meegan Read of CBC Radio One when asked for my thoughts on the announcement by the Campbell Soup Company that after 155 years, they intend to drop “soup” from their corporate name – and become The Campbell’s Company.
The name change is designed to convey to investors that Campbell’s is, increasingly, about much more than soup. The company owns a range of brands including Pepperidge Farm and Goldfish, for example. Soup is an important but diminishing part of their overall business.
I don’t think consumers will notice or care about “soup” being removed from the corporate name, with one caveat: the new corporate moniker, The Campbell’s Company, better not appear prominently on the soup can (or box). Right now, it simply says “Campbell’s,” just as it has for more than a century-and-a-half.
Don’t mess with the incredible equity in that design.
That design, of course, was made even more iconic by Andy Warhol’s paintings of the cans in the 1960s and 70s, which helped make him the highest-priced living American artist of that time.
My very short interview with Meegan is in the comments, and starts at 2:08.