JKR

The return of Campbell’s Soup to UK shelves has been universally reported with reference to the design made iconic by Andy Warhol.

No wonder. The simple, bold livery of the classic design belonged in a select group of American superbrands (Marlboro, Coke, Levi’s, Budweiser) who all understood that iconography is most charismatic when it explains less. So most news stories ran along the lines of “Campbell’s is back, but not in the iconic Warhol design”. Not great to have one’s return caveated with a ‘but…’

The actual packs we will see are the ones above. In common with the design which was withdrawn a few years ago, they feature generic food photography, the better to reassure us of the quality of the ingredients. Does it seem crazy to you that a brand everyone references as ‘iconic’ has squandered its heritage so much, and consistently chooses not to give us the design we like enough to put on our walls?

The brand’s new UK owners could argue a few good reasons for their choice: the aforementioned appetite appeal through photography is a gambit played by 90% of the brand’s competition, so this puts them on parity with the category, rather than transcending it. Consider also that those other 90% lack what Campbell’s has (or had): a truly iconic design.

One could also argue the photography provides the ability to differentiate packs, aiding quick navigation in store. I wonder if Warhol himself offered a solution to this conundrum in the later packs he painted, which retained the architecture, but mixed up the colours:

Perhaps the designs are just following the received wisdom from the parent US design, which also carries the food shots. As memory serves, when Campbell’s first switched to the food images in the nineties, sales dropped dramatically and someone quite senior lost his job. Still, the more generic design has endured.

Given that the new UK range is going into dry sachets and suchlike, it is easy to see why ‘food values’ are being bolstered with photography. But there is a counter argument: the iconography itself, so famous and established can act as a badge of trust, because it triggers the brand we all carry in our heads.

Finally, one could also argue that the pop art associations are passé or a bit elitist. The long queues outside any gallery running any UK pop art show would suggest evidence to the contrary.

But all these arguments and counter arguments turn on points of logic. What the old Campbell’s design achieved (in common with those other American classics) was not logical – it was the use of a set of colours and shapes to build trust, trigger associations, define itself distinctively in a category, and most importantly of all, build a sense of brand charisma by not explaining too much. It pulled, rather than pushed.

Campbell’s might be back, but the big question for the brand is will we care? And would we care more if it looked like the packs which caught so many folks’ imaginations?