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Gender, Campbells Soup and the American Consumer (xo WSJ

Gender, Campbell’s Soup and the American Consumer Maybe the...
Fantasy-prone fragrant jap pit
  05/21/18


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Date: May 21st, 2018 6:11 PM
Author: Fantasy-prone fragrant jap pit

Gender, Campbell’s Soup and the American Consumer

Maybe the departing CEO should have backed the original recipe for chicken noodle.

The logo for Campbell's Soup appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.

The logo for Campbell's Soup appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. PHOTO: RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By James Freeman

May 21, 2018 2:16 p.m. ET

671 COMMENTS

This column is not expecting the New York Times to celebrate the history being made today at the Central Intelligence Agency, where a woman is in charge for the first time. But that doesn’t mean the paper is completely uninterested in questions of gender. Times coverage of the leadership change at another storied institution suggests editors can think of little else.

The CIA’s new Director, Gina Haspel, spoke this morning at her swearing-in ceremony and noted the proud history of the organization, which began as the Office of Strategic Services during World War II:

Every CIA officer has taken the same oath that I just did to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies. And today I recommit that I will do everything in my power to justify the faith that President Trump and the American people have placed in us, and to make sure that CIA continues to provide the intelligence needed to keep our country safe.

I would be remiss if I did not also note the tremendous pride I take in being the first woman to serve as Director. I would not be standing before you today if not for the remarkable courage and dedication displayed by generations of OSS and Agency women in roles both large and small, who challenged stereotypes, broke down barriers, and opened doors for the rest of us...

I also want to express a special thank-you and welcome to Eliza and Zoe, who have joined us today. The notes from these two young ladies, ages six and seven, sent to me, sat on my desk these last two months and motivated me daily. In their own words and pictures, they expressed their excitement about the opportunity my nomination represented. And to Eliza and Zoe, I would simply say, we did it.

This column doesn’t know many kids of either gender who already dream of running spy agencies by age six. Here’s hoping the precocious tykes will someday be giving America’s enemies all they can handle. We might also dream that in a more peaceful world their talents won’t be needed for national defense and can instead be applied in the marketplace.

This brings us to the leadership change occurring at a famous civilian institution. A dispatch in the Times is so focused on the gender of the story’s subject that one has to read to the bottom of the fourth paragraph to learn what the story is about. The Times reports:

Denise M. Morrison, weaned on assurances from her father that the future would someday be led by women, yearned for the executive suite years before she occupied it.

When she finally reached the top, at Campbell Soup Co mpany in August 2011, she had few female peers in the upper ranks of the largest companies in the United States.

Reflecting on her career in an interview with The New York Times last month, Ms. Morrison said she had “wanted to break the glass ceiling,” regardless of the obstacles. “It wasn’t only about me,” she added. “It was about the next generation of women coming behind me.”

On Friday, Ms. Morrison retired abruptly as Campbell’s chief executive. No specific reason was cited, but the company’s stock has slumped 30 percent in the past year and Campbell reported poor quarterly results on Friday.

So Ms. Morrison has proven that a female CEO can struggle just like the men do in trying to navigate the challenging market for traditional packaged food brands.

Long before she arrived in the corner office, the company had been trying to revive sluggish soup sales and communicate a greater concern for healthy eating by messing with the chicken noodle recipe. She continued to tinker both with recipes and with the company’s product mix. And not unlike plenty of her male counterparts—as well as Times editors— she may have focused too much on issues unrelated to product quality and value.

In 2015 the Times noted:

Ms. Morrison speaks more candidly than most of her peers about the impact that changing consumer preferences and demographics are having on Campbell and other large food companies, which she described as “seismic shifts.”

“There are 80 million millennials now, and they’re shopping and thinking differently about food and in a way that is influential,” she said.

She said changes in the family are also challenging food companies. “Families now are multicultural, multigenerational, single-parent, same-sex, mixed and traditional,” Ms. Morrison said.

She also noted that the numbers of middle-class consumers, who powered sales for so long, were shrinking. “Food companies largely serve the mainstream, but there’s a shrinking middle class in the U.S., a widening chasm between the haves and have-nots,” Ms. Morrison said.

Was she selling soup or running for office?

Like plenty of her male counterparts, Ms. Morrison may have overestimated the demand for fresh and organic foods. While organics have obviously grown in popularity, they tend to be more expensive than conventionally grown alternatives. And some consumers may have noticed that it’s still not clear whether organics make us any healthier.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3983130&forum_id=2#36099444)