Campbell Soup is one of the world’s largest food companies, with a market value of over $10 billion. Founded in 1869 and headquartered in Camden, NJ, it sells products in 120 countries. The main About Us page (“Our Company”) is here.
OVERALL GRADE: F
The Campbell’s site has serious technical problems. Every time we visited over the past six weeks, the navigation menus have either overlapped each other or stretched clear across the page. Finding any page within the site is very difficult.
Accessibility: D
The best we can say about Campbell’s site is that every footer has a contact link and that the contact page offers a toll-free number, a mailing address, and an online form for email. Nowhere, however, are visitors encouraged to offer suggestions, praise, or complaints.
Products/Services: F
As far as we can tell, given the navigation problems, Campbell’s has no About Us page aimed at consumers. There’s no mention of the company’s founding in 1869. No mention that Campbell’s invented condensed soup. No mention of products that have been household names for decades: Cream of Mushroom Soup, V8, Goldfish Crackers. No mention of awards, including the medal from the Paris Exhibition of 1900 that still appears on the classic Campbell’s soup packaging. No explanation of the Campbell’s Kids. No mention of Andy Warhol’s pop-art renditions of Campbell’s soup cans or of Ronald Reagan’s ads for V8.
What is Campbell’s thinking? The “Mmm, Mmm, Good” people aren’t so good at telling us about themselves.
Personality: F
The About Us page seems to be aimed at investors and suppliers: the links are to the Executive Team, Labels for Education, Stamp Out Hunger, Around the World, Directions to World Headquarters, Supplier Requirements, and Supplier Diversity. Not a single one of these links works. Again as far as we can tell, there’s no statement of the company’s goals, no option to read an annual report, no mention of the company’s most successful products or its plans to maintain or increase sales.
TAKEAWAY
Even a $10 billion company that’s been a household name for generations should have an About Us page that reminds people how long it has been around and why it has survived and prospered. It saddens us to say that Campbell’s Soup, an American stalwart and one of New Jersey’s biggest corporate citizens, has the worst set of About Us pages that we’ve seen in this series of evaluations. In addition, technical problems abound. Wake up, folks!
Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). Contact us if you’d like to have your site evaluated—there’s no charge and no obligation.
Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.
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