When Americans think of soup, one brand comes to mind—and it isn’t Progresso. The ubiquitous red can dominates the U.S. canned soup market with 50% share, leaving Progresso a distant #2 at 16% in a declining category.
Seasonality turned the pressure up even higher. Nearly half (44%) of Progresso’s annual sales came from just three winter months—January through March—coinciding with National Soup Month and peak cold-and-flu season.
Our objective: Get more people to re-evaluate their soup brand of choice during cold and flu season by sparking buzz around Progresso—ultimately increasing top-of-mind brand awareness and expanding to new audiences.
Research revealed a crucial insight into our potential audience: 81% of consumers were choosing OTC solutions, like cough drops, over soup, for comfort during cold and flu season. Our competition wasn’t just another soup brand—it was the pharmacy aisle.
While Progresso had long been the choice of traditional “comfort seekers”—older consumers who view soup as a soothing ritual—younger consumers were bypassing soup entirely in favor of quick OTC fixes.
It was clear, Progresso needed to break through the noise to bring existing and new audiences, including younger consumers, back to soup. And the path forward meant reframing what comfort looks like today. To expand our audience, we had to disrupt that OTC instinct. So, we left the soup aisle entirely, hijacking OTC behavior in the most surprising and hilarious way imaginable.
Introducing Progresso Soup Drops, a first-of-its-kind product innovation designed to bring both comfort and delight. With the tagline “Soup you can suck on,” we delivered soup in a form people were seeking out most—a soothing drop. Working closely with food scientists, we captured Progresso’s iconic Chicken Noodle Soup flavor, down to the flecks of parsley, in the look of cough drops. Packaged in playful mini-Progresso cans, the design was a disruptive twist on our familiar soup format meant to draw shoppers back to the real cans found in the grocery aisle.
Our bold humor drove the idea organically through culture, dominating the late-night TV monologues and generating countless viral TikToks. Every piece of the campaign was deliberately designed for shareability and culture-first behaviors, reminding people that nothing is more comforting than a bowl—even a drop—of Progresso Soup.
The cheeky Soup Drops sparked organic conversation and served as an entry point to the portfolio, lifting awareness, SOV, and sales.
-- The ready-to-serve soup category grew by 5% vs PY with Progresso contributing 41% of the growth, far outpacing our top competitor’s contribution of only 4%
-- Progresso dollar sales trend saw a +14pt improvement post-Soup Drops launch
-- Top-of-mind awareness of Progresso grew by 196%
-- Progresso was re-positioned as the main soup brand on consumers’ minds (+47pts), stealing share of awareness from our #1 competitor (-40pts)
-- Progresso established as “my soup brand of choice” (+27%)
-- 200% increase in Google search interest for Progresso
-- 1M+ total visits to the Soup Drops website, with 689K+ unique visitors
-- 12.83B Earned media impressions, including SNL, The Tonight Show, the Late Show, USA Today, Food & Wine, and more
