Eye Of The Beholder?

Campbell Soup spent nearly a century selling its red-and-white cans the old-fashioned way. Then a chicken-noodle fan named Andy Warhol handed the company the greatest marketing coup of all time.

For 20 years beginning in 1962, the legendary artist painted more than 100 renderings of the Campbell Soup can, a pop-art rendition that helped turn Campbell’s into an internationally recognized brand.

This week, Campbell Soup announces the winner of its “Art of Soup” contest, a coordinated search for an artist to fill Warhol’s shoes - and hopefully bring the company similar fame and fortune. Warhol died in 1987.

“When Andy first did the paintings, Campbell’s did not know what to make of it,” said Kevin Lowery, a Campbell’s spokesman at its headquarters in Camden, N.J. “Then it started to gain lots of press and we realized the magnitude of his work and what this meant for us.”