Lewis Lazare: Why are we not surprised that Fremont Co., one of the nation’s largest producers of sauerkraut, was having trouble getting younger consumers interested in its product? The rather unappetizing-sounding product name alone could turn off millions of customers.
Lacking a giant advertising budget, the Fremont, Ohio-based company recently turned to an unlikely resource, Chicago public relations firm Bigfrontier Communications Group. Unlikely, because Steve Lundin founded Bigfrontier three years ago primarily as a tech-focused public relations firm.
Lundin suggested Fremont reposition sauerkraut as a food product with glamor. He came up with the idea of promoting a new drink called the “K-tini” — a martini made with olives stuffed with sauerkraut.
To get the word out, Bigfrontier planned parties in the hottest nightclubs nationwide. But coming from a tech PR background, Lundin quickly found out he and his associates weren’t the most adept of nightclub party planners. So they developed a K-tini party kit that was shipped to nightclub operators with the suggestion they throw their own K-tini parties. And they did.
The buzz about the K-tini finally gave it some invaluable exposure on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” where a K-tini was made on air.
Now Lundin is distributing information about the health attributes of sauerkraut, and is busily gathering data for the third component of his public relations thrust — focusing on what he refers to as sauerkraut’s “phenomenal flavor.”
