Our idea was simple. We'd show Australia soup wasn't just for wintery nights. It was a food for all occasions. Our campaign line was straight to the point. Whatever life throws at you, "We've got a soup for that." To convince Aussies soup was much more than warm comfort food they thought it was, we would need to do more than just tell them. In fact we'd need to show them why, in context. It just so happened that Google had a beta they wanted to test. Using their new ‘Vogon’ platform, in an Australian first, we dynamically embed headlines into pre-roll videos creating individual versions that related to our audience’s YouTube searches. For example, if you searched for Beyoncé's 'Single Ladies' we’d serve a pre-roll saying "Cooking for one? We've got a soup for that." Instead of one reason to eat soup, we gave Australia over 1,700.

Having kicked off with a month of nation wide TV and OOH to raise awareness of the 'We've Got a Soup for That' platform, the YouTube campaign rolled out over four weeks.

Based on YouTube's most searched categories and channels, we wrote countless headlines to match what people were watching and remind them of Campbell’s Soup. The headlines were then dynamically composited into a pre-roll video in real-time.

We also monitored social media and Google's real-time data throughout the campaign, identifying, on a daily basis, topical opportunities for new headlines. We jumped on the world’s most trending topics, including BREXIT, the U.S. Presidential Race and Pokémon Go, driving our message home in moments of increased relevance in order to truly modernize the brand. Over the four weeks our highly contextual messaging amassed almost 2 million impressions.

With a mission to reframe how a low-interest category like soup directly connects with people, and re-establish Campbell’s Soup’s cultural relevance, the campaign was a success. Over four weeks, more than 1 million people were reminded of the untold occasions and nourishing benefits of Campbell’s Soup. We landed over 1.9 million impressions, with a video view rate of 92.86%, and the campaign achieved a 24.7% lift in Ad Recall and a 6.9% lift in Brand Awareness for Campbell's Soup.

Best of all, there was a 55.6% increase in sales compared to 2015 with an additional study showing at least a 23% increase in sales being directly attributable to the advertising campaign - despite being beaten on price.

Campbell's Soup Australia's 'SoupTube' YouTube campaign, forming a part of the wider 'We've Got a Soup for That' brand campaign, saw the first use of Google's 'Vogon' advertising platform in Australia. Vogon revolutionised the way we bought media on YouTube, allowing us to provide our audience with highly contextual, targeted messaging, custom built based on their viewing habits. This resulted in the most targeted and personalised Youtube pre-roll campaign ever seen in the country, perhaps even the world.

To drive mass awareness we would lead with a TV campaign, starring celebrity chef and long time Campbell's ambassador Manu Fieldel, and displaying a number of occasion on which soup was the answer. We would also run a tactical OOH buy with contextual messages about times when soup was the answer. We would then drive home relevance through hyper-targeted, contextual messages using Google's 'Vogon' platform. YouTube use amongst our core audience of MGBs had skyrocketed in recent years, with a 74% increase in use by 18-49-year-olds, making it the perfect place to capture their attention. However, YouTube campaigns were often broad and poorly targeted, with Aussies considering pre-roll to be one of the most annoying ad formats. Through Vogon, and the multitude of viewing data Google had available, we saw an opportunity to turn pre-roll from one of the most interruptive formats into one of the most relevant.

Campbell's, and the soup category in general, was losing relevance in Australian kitchens. The problem was that soup was only ever thought about when it was cold, a declining occasion in Australia, where 2016 was the hottest winter on record.

Our brief, with a focus on Campbell's higher yield, more premium products, was to increase the volume and variety of occasions for consuming soup as well as to modernise the Campbell's brand, bringing more light and lapsed soup buyers to the brand.