What’s the Value of Your Name?

Just a quick word of caution today about your company name… it’s more valuable than you think.

A story about the Campbell Soup Company wanting to change their name after 155 years hit my inbox this week and I hope that they handle this carefully.

Mediapost.com’s headline: Campbell’s Soup Aims To Drop ‘Soup’

and the story:

After 155 years, an iconic and historic brand is considering a name change that will help communicate the diversity of its product offerings. 

“At an investor event Tuesday, Chief Executive Mark Clouse revealed that the storied company would ask shareholders to approve a name change, from Campbell Soup Company to The Campbell’s Company. It is a significant shift that underscores how much transformation has occurred since Clouse took over in January 2019,” according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Nearly half the company’s sales come from snacks, including such brands as Goldfish crackers and Kettle chips.

“Clouse told Wall Street at its investor day that Campbell’s is focusing on 16 top brands across its meals and beverages and snacking division including Goldfish, V8 beverages and Prego sauces,” according to Reuters. 

A Campbell’s representative tells Today.com that, if approved, its current web address — which still contains the word “soup” — will also change, but that doesn’t mean it’s forgetting the source of Andy Warhol’s inspiration. The representative also confirms that, despite the proposed name change, the company will still be known as “Campbell’s.”

“Last year, Campbell’s snack sales grew 13%, while its soups grew 3%,” reports CNN Business. “Legacy food companies like Campbell are pivoting to gain a larger share of the snack market, valued at more than $200 billion by market research firm Circana. Nearly half of Americans say they eat at least three snacks a day, according to Circana.”

Campbell recently acquired Sovos Brands, which includes Rao’s sauces, Michael Angelo’s frozen entrees and Noosa’s Yoghurt.

“The $2.7 billion deal will bolster Campbell’s food and beverage line in which soup remains important but is a smaller portion of the portfolio,” according to USA Today. 

If this name change is only at a corporate level and not a rebranding marketing plan too, then this isn’t all that important to their sales and future branding.  Some companies have done this successfully such as Google became Alphabet and Facebook became Meta.  What’s important is both Google and Facebook continued with their original brand names despite having a new corporate identity.  Other companies such as Twitter threw away their identity with the renaming to X.  Of course Elon Musk’s involvement changed the whole identity of Twitter and X is very different from the Twitter platform I first joined in 2008.

Some brands name change evolved more organically, as Chevrolet earned the Chevy nickname decades ago.  Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC when Americans were told that we should not eat fried foods, but some people already referred to them as KFC before they officially rebranded to just the three KFC letters.

The smart thing for the new Campbells company to do is to retain the legendary brand names that they now own and continue to promote those.  That’s what Proctor and Gamble has done.  The dumb thing would be to rebrand those iconic brands like Goldfish, V8 and Prego, dropping those names and replacing them with the Campbell name.  Those names have value and despite a corporate name change Campbell means soup to the consumer.

If you’re considering a name change for your business or starting a business and need to pick a name, contact me first.  I’ve seen multiple successes and a few failures in this area and can help guide you.