• by Danielle Oster , November 26, 2024

The brand taste test is a timeless marketing tactic. But Newman’s Own -- the Westport, Connecticut-based food brand co-founded by actor Paul Newman -- has put a new spin on the practice with its latest campaign.

For this “social experiment,” the brand enlisted consumers to taste-test two slices of pizza while blindfolded. Newman’s Own provided two descriptions for the (virtually identical) slices of pizza: before one, participants were given a description of the brand’s own practice of donating its profits to “help kids”; before the other, they were told the profits went toward corporate excesses like a “$50 million bonus for the CEO” and perks for top executives. 

According to Newman’s Own, consumers consistently rated the slices from the socially conscious company significantly higher than those described as benefiting corporate excess -- with the prior earning an average score of 8.5 out of 10, compared to an average 2.9 rating for the latter.

The company documented the “social experiment”  with a video, working with agency/consultancy DCX Growth Accelerator, digital media strategy agency Stella Rising, and The Door – which was responsible for earned media and influencer relations – on the campaign.

“Our experiment suggests that the good a brand does in the world can have a significant impact on the taste experience of just about anything,” Newman’s Own Interim Chief Growth  Officer Peter Kaye said in a statement, adding that despite the playful execution, the campaign was also designed to draw attention to genuine issues related to American business practices that pioritize profits despite brand purpose and social impact claims.

The campaign acts as an attention-grabbing way to remind consumers about the brand’s mission and long-running practice of donating its profits.

“Good Tastes Better” also builds on the similar “social experiment” of the  brand’s recent “Generosity Index" campaign. That effort found Newman’s Own’s pizza truck traveling across the country this summer to determine the “generosity” of various cities, informing customers of the brand’s profit-donating practices and asking them to set their own price for a pie.

Reflecting on the “Generosity Index” campaign in September, Doug Cameron, chief strategy & creative officer for DCX Growth Accelerator, told Marketing Daily that its “primary goal” was to reach Gen Z and millennial audiences that might be less familiar with Newman’s Own and its brand mission. This latest effort appears to pick up where it left off in service of reaching the same types of consumers.

“We have several other brand initiatives in development that build upon [the campaign’s] momentum,” Cameron said in September, while also alluding to an upcoming “celebration of Paul Newman's 100th birthday in January of 2025.”