Yeah, it kind of clashes with the careful Disney like feel good image Campbell has developed and doesn't really indicate a lot of public relations awareness, whether it was private or public.
Here's how I would have handled it if I was in charge of that thing. I'd have read that essay and thought, wow, OK, this does look like an attempt to get a lot of free engineering work and publicity. Then I'd either ignore it and hope it blows away if I had no authority, or if I did, talk to the other executives and point out that the particular issue of not paying travel and accommodations to New York is really not fair at all to the individual hackers and designers (since this is open to individuals and not design firms with a sales team and funding). I'd then publicly thank him for his insightful feedback, insist it was simply overlooked, and announce that OF COURSE Campbells is going to be paying airfare and accommodations to the 30 people that are selected to give presentations, and a family member if they like.
What I would definitely NOT do is pull out my rolodex and "contact every colleague I have client-side and agency-side" (this must be hundreds if not thousands of people) to inform them that a very mean and awful hacker has found my hackathon has some flaws with it in that I'm not paying people for the expenses necessary to comply with my demands, and so will they join in my pile on against him, the stupid annoying hacker, and his filthy company that has DARED, DARED I say to criticize the Almighty Campbells Soup company, which has been around need I remind him longer than he has even been alive the little piss ant!
Because that would be a really very stupid thing to do instead of just offer to pay the accommodations and airfare for these people who are doing free work for my company, and come out all roses having mastered such a minor PR challenge which has such an obvious solution to it.
It's not like Campbells isn't a Fortune 500 company (it is) who drops tens of millions on a Chunky Super Bowl XLVI Sweepstakes without blinking an eye at the cost. Their advertising and software development costs should not be subsidized by hackers. Given that most hackers are under IP contracts that prohibit them from entering something like this in their free time, most of the people legally able to enter are going to be hackers going through a spell of unemployment. Expecting them to do extensive free design work and fly out to meet clients for something that isn't even going to be all that much pay in the end if they do win the contract isn't a reasonable expectation. I expect though that a fair number of people will enter despite this. They might get better quality material though if they are at least willing to pay actual expenses of the finalists.