Progresso turns chicken noodle soup into 'Soup Drops' hard candy — Cannes PR Gold 2025

Progresso was America's No.2 soup brand, outspent 6:1 and operating in a category declining 16% year over year, with 44% of its annual sales packed into the short cold-and-flu season. The problem was that sick consumers had changed behavior: 81% reached for cough drops and other OTC remedies, so the brand's battle was no longer in the soup aisle.

The answer was a product called Soup Drops — chicken noodle soup reimagined as a hard candy that looked like cough-drop relief but tasted like Progresso, down to flecks of parsley. 'Soup you can suck on' was the R&D brief and the campaign line; food scientists built the drop, and it shipped in miniature cans that mirrored the iconic Progresso can.

Progresso released the drops in three sneaker-style waves during National Soup Month in January 2025, exclusive at ProgressoSoupDrops.com, with influencer 'soup-port' kits and media outreach driving demand. Every batch sold out — the last in under eight minutes — with over a million site visits and earned coverage that ran from SNL and The Tonight Show to USA Today and Food & Wine.

The numbers shifted the business: top-of-mind awareness rose 196%, brand association as 'soup on consumers' minds' gained 47 points, 'my soup brand of choice' rose 27%, and the campaign earned 12.83 billion impressions — the equivalent of about $90 million in media spend at a media budget of zero. The ready-to-serve category grew 5%, with Progresso contributing 41% of that growth.