Campbell's was losing relevance with consumers who chose food for authenticity, health transparency and purpose, while its positioning still rested on convenience and comfort. Vivaldi Group combined consumer insight research with a competitive landscape analysis to create Heart of What's Good, a brand purpose platform that bridges Campbell's heritage with contemporary food values. The platform now guides product portfolio decisions, communications and corporate storytelling across Campbell's business units.
Consumers were increasingly choosing food for authenticity, health transparency and purpose, and Campbell's traditional positioning around convenience and comfort no longer fully resonated. The company needed to modernize without abandoning the heritage that made the brand famous.
Vivaldi ran consumer insight research and a competitive landscape analysis, then created the Heart of What's Good brand platform: a narrative framework to guide product innovation, communications and corporate storytelling across Campbell's business units.
Campbell's gained a renewed brand purpose that informed product portfolio decisions, gave communications teams a coherent story and set a foundation for storytelling that balanced nostalgia with real contemporary relevance.
| Client | Campbell’s (Campbell Soup Company) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Food and beverage, consumer packaged goods |
| Region | United States |
| Vivaldi scope | Consumer insight research, competitive landscape analysis, brand purpose and positioning platform, narrative framework for innovation and communications |
| Platform | Heart of What’s Good |
| Outcome | A renewed brand purpose guiding portfolio decisions, communications and corporate storytelling across business units |
For generations Campbell’s stood for convenience and comfort. But food culture had changed: consumers increasingly wanted authenticity, transparency about health and ingredients, and brands with a clear purpose.
That left Campbell’s with a delicate job. Its heritage was a real asset, and walking away from it would alienate loyal consumers, yet the old positioning no longer fully resonated with new demographics. The company needed to modernize in a way that honored its history while connecting with how people now think about food.
Vivaldi combined consumer insight research with a competitive landscape analysis to understand what modern consumers valued and where competitors were already making claims. From that, the team developed Heart of What’s Good, a purpose that connects what Campbell’s has always done with what consumers care about today.
The platform was built as a working tool rather than a slogan: a narrative framework designed to guide product innovation, communications strategy and corporate storytelling across Campbell’s business units. Vivaldi’s five-pillar brand purpose framework explains how a purpose becomes operational.
For a definition and examples, see Vivaldi’s guide What is brand purpose?
Campbell Soup Company, the $9 billion American food company founded in 1869 and operating brands including Campbell’s, Pepperidge Farm, Swanson, and Prego, engaged Vivaldi to modernize positioning in a market where consumers were prioritizing food authenticity, transparency, and purpose-driven brands. Vivaldi developed the “Heart of What’s Good” brand platform, a narrative framework that bridged Campbell’s heritage with contemporary food culture and gave the company a coherent strategic platform to guide product innovation, communications, and corporate storytelling across its business units.
Campbell Soup Company is an iconic American food company founded in Camden, New Jersey in 1869. With annual revenues exceeding $9 billion, Campbell’s produces and markets a wide range of convenience food products under its namesake brand as well as Pepperidge Farm, Swanson, Prego, and other labels. The Campbell’s brand is one of the most recognized in the United States, but like many heritage food companies, it has faced the challenge of maintaining relevance amid dramatic shifts in how consumers think about food, health, and authenticity.
Vivaldi developed Heart of What’s Good, a brand purpose and positioning platform that bridges Campbell’s heritage with contemporary food values. It guides product innovation, communications and corporate storytelling across the company’s business units.
It started from what Campbell’s has always stood for and connected it to what consumers value today, such as authenticity and transparency. That way the brand could modernize without discarding the nostalgia loyal consumers value.
Consumers increasingly choose food based on authenticity, health transparency and what a company stands for. A clear purpose gives a heritage brand a credible reason to matter beyond convenience.
When it is built as a narrative framework, it becomes a filter for which products to develop, which stories to tell and how business units present the company. At Campbell’s it informed portfolio decisions as well as communications.
