roud parents everywhere might disagree, but Campbell Soup Co. says it has found the "Wisest Kid in the Whole World" for its latest ad campaign.
The blond-haired, blue-eyed boy sports a ZZ Top-like beard and sits atop a mythical mountain somewhere out in the soup universe.
From his perch he spouts mealtime recipes and advice on how to use the iconic condensed soups in the red and white cans for lunch and dinner.
The multimedia campaign — including print and television ads, as well as social media involvement — was created by New York's BBDO and launched last week.
"The campaign was inspired by the wise things that kids say, when you really listen to them," said Ed Carolan, president for U.S. retail at Campbell.
"Who knows what makes kids happy but other kids? So we might as well ask the Wisest Kid in the Whole World."
The Wisest Kid, who updates the decades-old, chubby-cheeked "M'm! M'm! Good!" cherubs known as the Campbell Kids, will also help parents with what Carolan calls "the mealtime dilemma."
"Parents still often struggle with that. There are a lot of things kids love to eat, but the parents want to be happy about what they're eating. ...
"We're confident he'll connect with parents everywhere."
Advertising and marketing pundits are ambivalent about the new strategy. John Stanton is a professor of food marketing at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. He was a consultant with Campbell for more than a dozen years and was a part of the "Soup is Good Food" campaign.
"It's a gallant effort," Stanton says of the Wisest Kid. "It's a cute concept.
"The problem is the red and white soup is a product for the '50s and '60s, when kids came home for lunch. The condensed soup is good but it's not convenient. You can't take it to work, it's not portable," the professor adds.
Jen Lombardo, a marketing instructor at Glassboro's Rowan University, believes the new campaign is a "pretty dramatic" move by Campbell.
"They have not gone outside the boundaries of their brand image for so long, and people are used to certain veins of branding appearing in ads," Lombardo notes.
"The kid with the long beard caught my attention, but I didn't associate it with Campbell right away. It took a little bit to make the connection."
Morgan Seamark, executive vice president and senior director of BBDO New York — which has had a working relationship with Campbell for nearly 60 years — says the wisest youngster will have a big presence on social media.
"He'll be on Twitter, Facebook, and on campbellskitchen.com," Seamark said. "Parents can ask him questions, and we'll do our best to have him respond. There will be a lot of points where he can be accessed. He's designed to be helpful in every way, with a bit of a wink and a smile."
In the ads the kid touts such phrases as, "If you hit a fork in the road, use it to eat chicken taco casserole," and, "More ways to dunk than can be thunk," as a circle of crackers, Goldfish (a Campbell product) and pretzels encircle his bowl of tomato soup.
He also unfurls "The Scroll of Infinite Deliciousness" to parents looking for a recipe.

According to the Kantar Media unit of WPP, a global communications services group, Campbell spent $222.9 million last year on ads for soup.
The Wisest Kid campaign is planned to be the largest single campaign within Campbell's line of U.S. soup and simple meals. The company intends to increase its total marketing spending to about $440 million in fiscal year 2014.
Asked if the Wisest Kid truly personifies a typical child — wise or otherwise — in today's multicultural society, BBDO's Seamark says the actor in the ads, who has not been identified, is perfect for the role.
"We cast a very wide casting for (the campaign), from New York to Los Angeles and everywhere in between," says Seamark.
"You always want to find the best actor, and this kid just inhabited the role. The campaign in its entirety is very diverse to reflect today's world."
St. Joseph's Stanton says he's not sure about the choice of actor.
"I would just say that it's important when you're trying to position an old product into a new time period that the advertisement reflects the new time period," he says.
"Clearly, including just a white kid in our country where the largest percentage of new births are not white kids, might raise some questions on how they did the casting."
Seamark says he can't talk about the effectiveness of the campaign yet, but notes parents are taking to the Internet to talk about it.
"We're very pleased about what we've picked up on the blogosphere," he says. "The initial reaction has been very positive.
"It's too early to tell on the business front, but we're excited to see where it goes."