Campbell’s corporate is in hot water, and this time it’s not in the saucepan.
On November 21, news broke that a former Campbell’s employee named Robert Garza is suing the company for wrongful termination. He alleges that he was fired for recording vp and chief information security officer Martin Bally disparaging the company’s products customers.
Bally reportedly said that Campbell’s sells “sh-t for f***ing poor people. Who buys our sh*t? I don’t buy Campbell’s products barely anymore. It’s not healthy now that I know what the f***’s in it…. Bioengineered meat—I don’t want to eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer.”
Not surprisingly, the comments have made national news in the last week, prompting Campbell’s to put Bally on leave. (Garza lost his job in January, though the reasons are unclear. Michigan law requires two-party consent for recording, and Garza had taped in secret.)
Campbell’s did not immediately respond to ADWEEK’s request for comment, but it did issue a statement when the story broke that it is “actively investigating the matter,” and that “if accurate, the comments in the recording as unacceptable.”
Assuming Bally’s vituperative blue streak happened as claimed, it’s colorful stuff coming from a C-suite executive—but that’s nothing new. Corporate chieftains have been putting their feet in their mouths by slamming their own customers for generations.
Let them eat cereal
Just last year, Kellogg’s CEO Gary Pilnick suggested while on CNBC that cash-strapped families struggling with grocery bills should just eat breakfast cereal for dinner instead.
“If you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do, that’s going to be much more affordable.”
Social media didn’t take kindly to that remark, as cereal prices had risen 28% since the pandemic—and especially after someone looked up an 8-K and discovered that Pilnick’s salary package was worth $5.4 million.
“Do you think he’s feeding his kids cereal for dinner?” asked one.
Slim down
In 2013, Lululemon founder and CEO Chip Wilson got into trouble after he opined that some women were too fat for the stretch pants he’d made millions selling to them.
“Quite frankly, some women’s bodies don’t actually don’t work,” Wilson told Bloomberg’s Street Smart. “It’s about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there.”
