 Campbell Soup Company Debuts First-ever Times Square
Billboard in Company’s 140-year History
CAMDEN, NJ — Commuters emerging from the 7th Avenue Subway station at 53rd Street in New York are asking themselves how a young boy could be slurping a giant noodle from a bowl of soup in a billboard below his New York apartment. The noodle and child are actually part of a unique outdoor advertisement marking the 75th anniversary of Campbell’s® Chicken Noodle soup—America’s favorite soup.
Introduced in 1934 near the height of the Great Depression, Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup remains one of the top 10 items sold in grocery stores. Campbell'sChicken Noodle soup continues to provide great value, whether in challenging or prosperous economic times. Each year, more than 250 million cans of Campbell’sChicken Noodle soup are consumed, which means if the noodles in those cans were placed end-to-end, they would circle the earth 58 times.
 In bigger-than-life Times Square style, the new billboard highlights the fact that each can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup is made with over 32 feet of fresh egg noodles.
BBDO-New York developed the advertising campaign for Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup that is currently on television, in print and online. The noodle and mannequin were crafted by Traction Creative, Lancaster, Pa., which specializes in developing signature outdoor advertising elements. Once on site, the billboard components were installed in under five hours.
“We wanted to remind people how the soup they love more than any other is full of the stuff they love most,” said Eric Christianson, Business Director, Campbell’scondensed soups. “Our television commercial, ‘Slurp’, as well as our print ads use the billboard and giant noodle imagery to drive home the value we offer in each can. It just made sense to bring that same idea to life with a real billboard above one of the busiest intersections in the world.”
The out-of-home ad consists of a mesh billboard featuring the image of a 27-foot wide bowl of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup, a 54-foot noodle that winds out of the bowl and then rises three stories up the side of the building to a window unit featuring a mannequin of a young boy slurping the noodle from the bowl. The billboard will be seen by an estimated 1.5 million people walking along 7th Avenue at the 53rd Street intersection during a four-week period.
Campbell has long been an advertising innovator. Campbell’s soups were first advertised with the help of the classic Campbell Kids characters on trolley boards in New York City in 1904. For many years, the company was the leading print advertiser in magazines like Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, Life and Look, where Page 2 was often referred to as the “Campbell’s page” within the advertising community of the day. In the 1930s Campbell began advertising on radio and the “M’m! M’m! Good!” jingle was first heard. In the 1950s Campbell made television the centerpiece of its advertising effort, including its long-running sponsorship of the classic “Lassie” series. Despite these and other advertising firsts, this marks Campbell’s first billboard in Times Square.
“The idea was just right,” said Christianson. “And the timing couldn’t be better –
it’s soup season in New York City.”
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