CLIENT: The Fremont Company
PR AGENCY: BIGfrontier Communications Group
TIMEFRAME: October 2004-ongoing
BUDGET: $50,000
TIMEFRAME: January 2005
The Fremont Company in Fremont, Ohio, wanted a new way to sell its signature sauerkraut product. Chicago-based BIGfrontier Communications Group came back with
one word: Glamour. If 20- and 30-somethings were going to swill fermented cabbage, the agency suggested, a sexy new image was on tap.
Chris Smith, Fremont's marketing VP, was quick to sign onto this somewhat unlikely notion. "In talking to some different firms, especially those dealing with food clients, I
noticed I got a lot of the same things that their other clients were getting," he says. "I had already done what everybody else is doing, and it may work if you are a large
multinational brand. But when you are a smaller company with a smaller budget and you have a real PR challenge in front of you, it's necessary to have a new idea."
In this case, the idea took the form of the "K-tini:" Stuff an olive with kraut, marinate overnight in vermouth, and then plunk it in a glass of chilled vodka. Voila: The K-
tini.
The agency started laying plans in October 2004. A month later, it hit the streets with a media blitz encompassing the general consumer press along with health editors, chefs
and restaurant owners, bloggers writing about food and cookbook authors.
As an agency, BIGfrontier previously had worked in the technology space. For this first venture into the consumer arena, agency executives learned on the fly. They compiled
their mailing list from diverse sources, but the primary focus was on club owners at upscale party places.
"We really wanted this beverage to be adopted, so we needed to talk to the people responsible for putting cocktails on cocktail lists to get inside the heads of the people
who actually make the decision," says BIGfrontier's founder Steve Lundin. Club owners, in turn, steered the PR executives toward the movers and shakers in the swanky-drink
world.
To drum up attention for the new "kraut cocktail," the agency threw parties at upscale clubs.
"We tried to pick the best clubs in each market -- the most exclusive, VIP, roped-off kinds of clubs" whose influential patrons would generate buzz, Lundin says. After the
parties, press releases went out, touting the success of the events.
But you can't party in every club -- not on a cumulative $50,000 campaign budget -- so Lundin packaged a "party to go:" the "K-tini in a Box" party kit. Bartenders and club
owners can request free kits at http://www.sauerkraut.com and, so far, 200 have done so.
BIGfrontier also has solicited signed martini glasses from celebs like chef Jacques Pepin and Ted Allen, from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." These, in turn, have been
packaged into K-tini kits and donated to high-profile charity auctions for such groups as the Red Cross and March of Dimes.
All this activity eventually caught the attention of editors at "Good Morning America," but not in the usual way. "They didn't even come to us," Lundin recalls. "They just
made the drink on the air. We were told about it by the client, whose wife happened to see the show. Now that is true PR - that's how it should work.
"The idea should be so good that it encourages people to do something, without all the arm-twisting and payola lunches. A natural idea will sell itself."
This strategy of "idea-first PR" lies at the heart of Lundin's somewhat maverick approach. He cheerfully bad-mouths the big established firms, arguing that traditional PR is
missing the mark more often than not.
"The best PR concepts come from people who are not constrained by a formal PR education, because what that education teaches you to do -- to emulate the mediocre," says
Lundin, who previously worked in advertising, movies and at a comic-book company.
He adds: "What we are doing as a firm is creating a phenomenon. We don't talk about tactics with new clients anymore. We come in with a new way of thinking, and we find
clients who are willing to embrace that."
Big talk, but it's hard to argue with success. The Associated Press and Knight Ridder news services both picked up the K-tini story, which appeared in print and
on radio as well as in TV news spots nationwide: KOIN-CBS in Portland, Ore.; WKRC-CBS in Cincinnati, Ohio; KHQ-NBC in Spokane, Wash.; and WITI-TV (Fox) in Milwaukee.
Better still, there's a happy client at the end of the day. "BIGfrontier Communications Group delivered a fresh idea for what would otherwise be deemed an old category of
food, an old-world product," Fremont's Smith says.
Contacts: Steve Lundin, 312.602.2434, [email protected]; Chris Smith, 419.244.3580, [email protected]
Making The Change From Tech To 'Tini
When The Fremont Company engaged BIGfrontier Communications Group to reinvigorate sauerkraut, the agency found itself facing a daunting task. Sure, it was going to be hard
enough to pump glamour into rank, decaying cabbage-in-a-can. But there was a bigger issue for the agency, which had previously focused on technology clients: How to realign its
own business focus.
To make the switch to the consumer realm, the three-person PR team first needed to compile a new list of media contacts. In addition to online research and talking
extensively to prospective contacts in the restaurant world, they also turned to such services as ListLogicand BusinessWire.
Even with these tools in hand, BIGfrontier founder Steve Lundin says the firm probably gave more than it got in the initial days. As it geared up for the initial "K-tini"
launch, the firm put in nearly triple its budgeted time, but that's what was needed to make the transition from tech to consumer. "If you want to make a shift in your business
offerings, you have to make that investment when an opportunity like this comes along," Lundin says.
Of course, a change in agency focus means you'll likely make some mistakes along the way. In this case, an initial effort to plan high-profile parties at clubs nationwide
turned out to be more difficult than was anticipated.
"Doing the parties in-house was a lot of work, and there were just too many unknowns," Lundin adds. Solution? Put the party fixings in a box and ship them out to restaurant
owners with ingredients and instructions. "If you can motivate someone else to do his or her own parties and then run the photos on your Web site, it actually offloads a lot of
that work onto that third party," he says.