Campbell's Grabs Kids From the Floor

Camden, NJ -- Campbell's Soup Co. supported its line of kids' condensed soups by enhancing its floor clings campaign with a second rollout that began at the start of the year. The floor ads feature the licensed characters that appear on the soup labels.Through the floor program, brand managers at Campbell's hoped to make the hard-to-navigate soup aisle more shopper-friendly, as well as get kids to ask specifically for the soups."If we weren't in the consideration set for the kids, Mom wasn't going to force soup down them," says John Faulkner, director of brand communications at Campbell's Soup. "It is a lot easier when kids are asking for it." Designed to appeal to a bull's-eye market of 10-year-old boys, the colorful clings feature Batman, Goldfish and Dora the Explorer as a group. The initial rollout in the fourth quarter of 2005 gave each cartoon its own decal. (Currently, Batman stands alone on the floor in front of the SpaghettiOs' shelf as well.) "We don't take the power of in-store advertising for granted," says Kim McGough, senior manager of integrated marketing at Campbell's Soup. "Floor ads are a great way to bring these licensed soups to life, reaching kids on their level." The floor decals, designed by the creative team at Ryan Partnership, Wilton, CT, and placed in approximately 7,500 grocery store chains in an exclusive buy with News America Marketing, New York, are designed to last an entire 12-week cycle. Campbell's hopes that locking out competitors from using this 20-foot advertising territory during "soup season" will be worth the investment, which they will only describe as "pretty expensive" after factoring in the media placement costs and production fees for the 2-foot by 2-foot decals.However, the company expects to do 60% of its volume during the five winter months. "I don't think the buy-out was a risk," McGough points out. "One, we are reinforcing our licensed SKUs with kids and two, we are bringing a great licensing property in a bigger way to our retail partners."The floor displays complement print ads placed in children's magazines like Nickelodeon, and reinforce Campbell's unique shelving unit known as the iQ Maximizer, a gravity-delivered way to organize cans. Each door on this iQ Maximizer features a three-dimensional version of the can's label -- which for the kids' soups would be Dora, Batman and Goldfish. "The labels are 300% the size of a regular 10.5-ounce can. It's a much bigger presence at the shelf. Candidly, we have trouble keeping them in the store because the kids swipe them out of the iQ Maximizer," Faulkner reports. "I think it's a good thing when keeping them on the shelf is our challenge."In the corporate earnings release for fiscal year 2005, released in September, Campbell's highlighted its condensed soup business as up 8% for the year, driven in large part by these kids' variety soups. This was after a 6% increase in 2004. McGough will incorporate the floor ads into Campbell's marketing mix analysis, comparing the soup giant's data with matching panel studies conducted by News America, which benchmarks sales with floor displays against stores that lack this marketing medium.At a minimum, she wants to see the decals break even but doesn't count out the marketing power of softer benefits. "It's all about reaching our target audience at the right touchpoint, and at multiple touchpoints. The shelf is the moment of truth for a reason."

P2PI MEMBERS

JOIN P2PI

You May Also Like

Campbell’s Debuts Grilled Cheese, Tomato Soup Concoction

AD Retail Media’s Transition In-House