CMO One-to-One: Campbell Soup Targets with 'Natural' Digital Connections

AN INTERVIEW WITH:

Adam Kmiec Director, Digital Marketing and Social Media, The Campbell Soup Company July 11, 2012

RESUME:

The Campbell Soup Company: Director, Digital Marketing and Social Media, since since May 2012 Walgreens: Director, Social Media MARC USA: Senior Vice President of Interactive Marketing Innovation ConAgra Foods: Manager of Interactive Marketing

COMPANY DATA:

Annual sales 2011: $7.719 billion (Source: The Campbell Soup Co.)

LAST THING WATCHED ON YOUTUBE:

“The Google Parisian Love ad from a few years ago during the Super Bowl. It reminds me that insights are critical to making advertising more efficient and more naturally connected to consumers. The story behind Parisian Love is they actually launched several of these types of ads well ahead of the Super Bowl. They put them on YouTube. And they actually gauged sentiment, the number of views, how it was being shared, how people were talking about them, and they ultimately ended up picking the Parisian Love ad based on all those dynamics.”

eMarketer: As a global brand, what would you like Campbell Soup to mean to consumers and how does that play out digitally?

Adam Kmiec: The key thing with being a global brand is you’re able

CMO DOSSIER

to take insights from one market and then quickly apply them to another market. As an example, [Asia-Pacific] has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to mobile. There are some great datapoints I’ve seen about the average person having two to three different cell phones. That is very different from the US—and learning and understanding markets beyond the US actually allows us to advance the ball really quickly here in North America, as well as in emerging markets.

What’s critical with digital is to continuously put the consumer right at the center and then customize those digital experiences that naturally connect with them. That’s the key. It’s real easy to force things, but we really want to be consistent with being naturally connected.

eMarketer: How are you incorporating mobile into brand marketing to reach millennials?

Kmiec: I don’t think mobile is just for millennials, although I know that a lot of focus has been on the usage of mobile by millennials. Mobile, for us, is broader than just millennials, but we have a good understanding of how millennials are entering the space and they’re staying very connected with mobile devices.

It really is about understanding the segmentation and understanding the natural connection points for [each] audience. A really good example of that is the recent data that came out the other day about millennials shifting from Facebook to Twitter. That’s an important signal to pay attention to—and it’s not just that they’re using mobile, it’s how they’re using mobile. Are they browsing? Are they shopping? Are they talking, chatting, texting? Are they downloading apps?

“As a dad who happens to blog, I’ve loved how digital has evolved to a space where we can say, ‘You know what? Dads do have some amount of influence out there.’”

There is some secret sauce stuff that I definitely can’t give you right now, but I can tell you that behind some major product launches in 2013, our go-to-market strategies to connect with millennials are going to involve a lot of cutting-edge areas in mobile.

The toughest thing with mobile is it changes every single day and one of the things I’m hoping to bring to the organization is an ability to increase our tempo to match that pace of change.

eMarketer: Do you think every consumer brand needs to have a presence on social media?

Kmiec: The natural inclination, given the hype and attention surrounding social, is for every company and every brand to have a presence. But our philosophy is to trust the insights [we gather] and be prepared for where the market’s going, not where it is. That means for many of our brands that social is a natural way for us to connect, to learn and to drive the business.

The harder part is choosing which social networks are right for [which] brand—and the largest ones aren’t always the best choice. One of the nice things about working at a CPG food company is it opens up doors

to social networks like Foodspotting, something that I really couldn’t take advantage of in my previous role at Walgreens. Foodspotting is one that we’re certainly looking at, but I would say that in fiscal year 2013, which [for us] starts in August, what you’re going to see is a rapid acceleration of experimentation beyond the well-known social networks.

eMarketer: How are you using digital to target moms and also dads?

Kmiec: As a dad who happens to blog, I’ve loved how digital has evolved to a space where we can say, “You know what? Dads do have some amount of influence out there.” They are creating content. They are very connected. They are trading ideas. They’re taking a more active role in parenting. I love that.

“When someone’s looking for that right recipe at that right moment, we’re going to make sure that we’re relevant and that we’re seen as the right choice, not just an option.”

There are several blogs that are written from a dad’s perspective that I follow because I am a dad. I also happen to follow several blogs that are written by moms. I think if you’re being a pretty active parent, you’re consuming as much information as you possibly can. That’s just something that I personally love to see and, frankly, I’m thrilled with the idea of how we connect with people in general. It’s not about millennials. It’s not about boomers. It’s not about moms, young moms, old moms, moms in between old and young. It’s not about teens. It’s more about thinking about an audience and the type of content that audience is looking for, and specifically, when you think about parents, there is no shortage of information out there and it is definitely something that we are all on the hunt for.

eMarketer: But you can’t have one message fit all.

Kmiec: No, you can’t. The people creating content and the people consuming content consume it differently and they create it differently. For example, dads write about parenting from a very different perspective from moms and millennials think about things and consume things differently from boomers. That’s natural.

I don’t think we walk into it with pre-segmentation [in mind]. We think about [our messaging as,] we have a brand, the brand has an emotional connection, that connection ladders back to the consumer we’re trying to reach, and then we start building off the natural connection points to engage that consumer. Sometimes that means working with moms who happen to blog. Sometimes it’s dads who happen to blog. Sometimes it’s working through paid channels. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach and, certainly, when we have such a unique composition of brands that people love, you can’t just apply one strategy from one brand to another.

eMarketer: Can you give me an example of a campaign that reflects this segmentation approach?

Kmiec: Campbell’s Kitchen has very specific paid initiatives, everything from how we treat display advertising, to video advertising that is

focused on recipes, to how we’re connecting with bloggers. There are also channels that are hard-working, like search. When someone is looking for that right recipe at that right moment, we’re going to make sure that we’re relevant and that we’re seen as the right choice, not just an option.

“There is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and certainly, when we have such a unique composition of brands that people love, you can’t just apply one strategy from one brand to another.”

Merging all those things and thinking about how someone is going from thinking, “Oh, my gosh. I need to cook something,” to “What should I cook?” to “How do I cook it?” to “Where do I buy it?” These are different steps in an event chain, if you will, and that’s why you can’t just think about it as paid stuff and earned stuff and owned stuff. You literally have to think about all the different ways a consumer may end up engaging with you.

eMarketer: You’ve talked about making Campbell’s “digitally fit.” What does that mean to you?

Kmiec: Digital fitness, as I define it, is about an everyday commitment, but it’s also a lifestyle change. I see it every day—in our hiring process, in the leadership, in the tools and partners we choose. It’s a long-term commitment that is grounded in everyday commitment.

eMarketer: Would part of that be ensuring every employee has a social media presence?

Kmiec: That’s not a specific tactic, but I can tell you that we’re probably one of the few organizations that has a social media policy and guidelines. These provide good rules of the road by basically saying, “Be smart.” The way that we think about social across the entire employee base is we want you to be passionate advocates, and there is a reason that people absolutely, genuinely love that red-and-white can. It’s a brand that has equity. It has heritage, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t want our employees to feel that sense of ownership and passion for the brand.

 

Interview conducted by Lauren Barack on July 11, 2012.

 

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