Soup’s on…and on and on

What’s undisputed is that the brands generate staggering amounts of packaged products. Claiming to control 69% of the U.S. market for its cornerstone product, wet soups, Campbell sells almost three For the package design team, this volume creates what John W. Faulkner, director, brand communications, calls an “incredibly complex” array of thousands of SKUs, each with a brand image to be upheld and, as consumer needs dictate, modified to better suit its market.

What’s undisputed is that the brands generate staggering amounts of packaged products. Claiming to control 69% of the U.S. market for its cornerstone product, wet soups, Campbell sells almost three For the package design team, this volume creates what John W. Faulkner, director, brand communications, calls an “incredibly complex” array of thousands of SKUs, each with a brand image to be upheld and, as consumer needs dictate, modified to better suit its market. It’s a formidable responsibility for a design group that, despite the world-bestriding size of Campbell, isn’t particularly large: about 30 people in Camden, and another 15 in regional design centers in several foreign countries. Darralyn Rieth, director, global design, is one of 10 art directors in Camden whom Lunderman calls the group’s “strategic thought leaders”— the skilled translators of “consumer need states” who translate those states into package designs that balance brand equity protection with visual content that reflects changing market realities. For Rieth and her artists, this means working intuitively, methodically, and collaboratively— but above all, working a lot.