• by Karlene Lukovitz , August 18, 2015

Uh-oh. SpaghettiOs is middle aged.

Campbell Soup Company is using the brand's 50th anniversary as a platform to boost sales by appealing to adults' fond memories of eating the canned pastas when they were kids, and positioning the products as snacks. 

For two months starting Aug. 18, SpaghettiOs will be running a social media-only campaign dubbed “The BIG FiveO 50th Birthday Celebration.” 

The elements will include "party games" hosted on Facebook, prizes, gift giveaways and "other surprises," according to Campbell. Fans will also be able to buy limited-edition 50th birthday cans in the brand's original and meatball flavors.

SpaghettiOs' online outreach to social media "influencers" through Snapfluence.com explains that the campaign is "all about celebrating the nostalgia you feel for this iconic brand and how it still makes its way into your snack drawer."

The themes about which participating bloggers are being asked to post on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook include enjoying SpaghettiOs as a convenient snack ("a tasty 'big snack' that's filling and nutritious"); nostalgia ("reminds me of when I was a kid"); 50th birthday ("raising a spoon to thank its fans and celebrate 50 years of fun") and playful, topical tie-ins to current holidays and events. 

In a separate ad on Snapfluence, the brand also recruited influencers to create content that brings three party game themes to life and encourages fans to participate. 

The game themes include "Ode to Os" (e.g., soup bowl image above), in which the influencers and fans are to create videos or post comments featuring five-word poems about their love of SpaghettiOs; "spoonie selfies" (also shown) using the "fun house" reflection off of any household spoon; and "the BIG picture," calling for creating "carefully scaled" tableaus in which a large SpaghettiOs can is paired with tiny people. Participants in the last category will earn chances to win grand prizes. 

All influencer posts are to be tagged with #BIGFiveO (and also with #ad #spon or #sponsored, to identify them as sponsored posts).

The brand reports that its chefs have created a red velvet cupcake made with SpaghettiOs, and will be promoting the recipe. 

SpaghettiOs' original flavor, launched in May 1965, introduced the world’s first “spoonable spaghetti.” The products were originally branded Franco-American SpaghettiOs, after a company that Campbell acquired in 1915. They were switched over to the Campbell brand in 2004, when the cans were redesigned.

The brand's long-running, unforgettable (just try) campaign, featuring a TV spot in which Jimmie Rodgers sang "The neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon—Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs," launched in October 1965.