A century of popcorn, and no one knew the name
Cornfields had made popcorn for other people for decades. G.H. Cretors was the first bag with their own name on it, and nobody had heard of it.
Scope
Launch PR for G.H. Cretors, the first consumer-facing brand for Cornfields, Inc., anchored by the caramel-and-cheddar Chicago Mix.
Challenge
Cornfields had spent decades making popcorn for other companies. Contract manufacturing is a business with no public face, and it had left them with everything except the one thing a consumer brand needs: someone who has heard of you.
So the launch started at zero on every count. No media relationships, no consumer awareness, no shelf presence, and a snack aisle that is not short of bags.
What we did
The one asset they did have was the best kind: a true story nobody else could tell. Charles Cretors built the first commercial popcorn machine in 1885, and the family making this popcorn is the fifth generation of his line.
That turned a new brand into an old one. We led every pitch with the heritage rather than the product, because an unknown bag is a hard sell and the inventor of the popcorn machine is a booking.
Then we put it in mouths on air. Chicago Mix is a taste-test product, so we built the broadcast program around on-camera sampling and studio audience giveaways, and timed the pitches to the two weeks a year America thinks hardest about snacks: the Super Bowl and the Oscars. Regional retail stories followed each new Costco and grocery market, so the coverage arrived where the bags had just landed.
Results
3.9 billion impressions and more than $8M in earned PR value.
National placements ran in Good Morning America, HuffPost, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Good Housekeeping, Yahoo News, Food & Wine and Canadian House & Home, alongside on-air tastings across multiple CBS and Fox morning shows, where anchors sampled Chicago Mix live and called it a big hit.
The work contributed to the company’s exit to Eagle Foods.
Why the heritage worked
Heritage is not nostalgia. It is the shortest available answer to the question a shopper asks about an unfamiliar bag, which is why should I trust this one.
A brand launched in 2010 cannot answer that. A family that has been making popcorn since 1885 can answer it in a sentence, and a producer can put that sentence on air.
Where it landed
The short answers
What did Crier Communications do for G.H. Cretors?
Crier ran launch PR for G.H. Cretors, the first consumer-facing brand for Cornfields, Inc., covering media relations, broadcast PR and social media. The program built the brand from no consumer awareness and no media relationships to 3.9 billion impressions and more than $8M in earned PR value.
How do you launch a consumer brand for a contract manufacturer?
Find the story the company already owns. Cornfields had made popcorn for other brands for decades, so there was no consumer reputation to build on, but the family behind it descends from Charles Cretors, who built the first commercial popcorn machine in 1885. Leading with that heritage turned a brand-new bag into a fifth-generation one, which is a booking rather than a pitch.
Who invented the popcorn machine?
Charles Cretors built the first commercial popcorn machine in 1885. The family behind G.H. Cretors are fifth-generation popcorn makers tracing their roots to him, and that heritage anchored the brand’s U.S. launch campaign.
What results did the G.H. Cretors PR program deliver?
3.9 billion impressions and more than $8M in earned PR value, including Good Morning America, HuffPost, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Good Housekeeping, Yahoo News, Food & Wine and Canadian House & Home, plus on-air tastings and studio audience giveaways across multiple CBS and Fox morning shows. The work contributed to the company’s exit to Eagle Foods.
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