The archive · PR & Stunts · Marketing decision · 2022–2023
Newman's Own lets people use Paul Newman's face if 100% of profits go to kids
For its 40th anniversary, Newman's Own reissued the founder's deal: use Paul Newman's likeness if every profit dollar goes to helping kids.
Newman's Own
What it had to solve
Newman's Own had spent 40 years giving all its profits away. Activista was asked to celebrate the anniversary by recreating the founder's original deal, the one where his name and face built a company that refuses profit, so the legacy had to be offered again rather than merely told.
How it works
Newman's Own was built on an unusual deal: Paul Newman's name and face sold products whose profits were given entirely away. Forty years later, Activista was asked to mark the anniversary in a way that made that radical commitment feel current.
The answer was to rerun the original deal. For a limited time, people were given access to Paul Newman's likeness to use on a product of their own, on one condition: 100% of all associated profits must go to helping kids. The company kept refusing profit and donating everything, so the campaign's terms matched the way Newman's Own had always operated.
The D&AD awards archive preserves the campaign as PR work and records no financial figures. The case stands on the mechanism: a philanthropy story that could have been told as history was restated as an open contract, letting other people step into the founder's role and give a product's entire profit away.
Why it lands
- Using the founder's likeness makes the 40-year commitment concrete instead of a slogan about the past.
- The 100% profit condition lets participants prove their generosity in the same radical way Newman did.
- An open deal invites new products and audiences to carry the rule forward after the anniversary has passed.
- Refusing profit while asking others to refuse it keeps the brand's behaviour and its message identical.
What it did
The D&AD archive files the campaign under PR and records no licensing or donation figures. What it documents is the deal becoming transferable: the founder's radical commitment, take no profit and give it all to help children, was turned from company history into a deal other people could enter.
What you can take
Reissue a founder's rule as an open deal, and an anniversary story becomes an invitation people can act on.
Since then
The D&AD awards archive lists 'Newman's Deal' as PR work for Newman's Own, and its page reports no participation or donation totals. The documented aftermath is the mechanism itself: a company that had given every profit away for 40 years offered its founder's likeness under the same no-profit condition, keeping the original deal alive as an open offer rather than a closed chapter.
Sources
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