Case Studies

Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner. enlisted Linhart PR – its longtime national news-making PR firm partner – to secure year-round earned media coverage educating about beef as America’s number one protein for its nutritional benefits, delicious taste and versatility in a time of high grocery prices and amidst an evolving media landscape. Employing a highly adaptive, spokesperson-driven media strategy that featured pitmasters, dietitians and chefs, Linhart PR successfully garnered consistent national news coverage across top-tier broadcast stations and online outlets over the course of a year, securing more than 300 pieces of coverage and 6.4 billion impressions, a significant improvement from the previous year.

Linhart PR helped a national commodity promotion board elevate its crisis preparedness by developing and presenting a crisis simulation exercise requiring collaborative decision-making in real time, by members of the cross functional team who would be charged with managing an actual crisis. The exercise met its goals by building alignment in support of the crisis plan, establishing the PR team as the organization’s crisis experts, and uncovering opportunities to improve the plan and better align with industry and value chain partners.

After years of success bringing the benefits of organic dairy products to a broader segment of consumers, a leading producer of private label milk and butter for many of the largest U.S. retailers faced several existential threats. These included heightened regulatory scrutiny, class-action lawsuits and an activist campaign led by an organic dairy policy group. After turning to Linhart PR for crisis planning and response, communications strategy and advocacy support, the company was able to overcome the threats, preserve key customer relationships and begin strengthening its reputation for commitment to animals, people and the planet.

Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. – managed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff – is on a mission to position beef as the top protein for summer grilling season. As Beef’s national consumer communications partner, Linhart PR was tasked with securing national news coverage during summer grilling season that highlighted beef’s affordability, versatility and flavor, making it the ideal protein for summer cookouts amidst high inflation. By keeping a close pulse on the news cycle and utilizing insights from a research survey that brought summer food preparation trends and shopping behaviors to light, Linhart PR crafted a series of tailored media pitches matched to specific news outlets that ultimately led to impactful national coverage that provided consumers with guidance on how to prepare delicious, cost-effective summer meals for any occasion with beef.

Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. – managed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff – collaborates with national PR firm partner Linhart PR to share stories of how beef is raised and by whom. Together, the team identified North Carolina-based Marvin Frink, a U.S. Army veteran turned cattle rancher who found PTSD healing through agri-therapy, his term for the emotional and psychological benefits of tending to his animals. Drawing upon its creative storytelling and national news-making experience, Linhart PR developed a tailored media outreach approach around Marvin’s inspiring story that allowed his unique journey and care for his beef cattle to truly shine in a People feature.

Boulder, Colo.-based Chocolove premium chocolate partnered with Linhart PR to drive brand and product awareness for its limited-edition Valentine’s Day offerings in advance of the chocolate-centric holiday. Using an approach that targeted both media and influencers, as well as new and existing Chocolove fans, Linhart PR drove national and local news coverage, as well as influencer shares, reaching millions of consumers with messaging on what distinguishes Chocolove from other chocolate brands.

Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner. – managed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff – tasked Linhart PR with helping to quickly re-strategize and pivot PR plans to ensure that amid a saturated pandemic-focused news cycle, beef remained top-of-mind for consumers in a culturally relevant, but also helpful and informative, way. Using a multi-faceted, spokesperson-driven media approach, Linhart PR drove national news coverage in top-tier outlets, reaching more than 200 million consumers with key beef messages, recipes and tips as the country sheltered at home in spring 2020.

Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner. – managed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff – was looking to promote beef as part of a healthy diet, while also telling the stories of cattle ranchers who work hard to help feed families across the country. Through creative storytelling, tailored pitch development, and strategic media targeting, Linhart PR – Beef’s national PR partner – secured a significant national feature story with messages on the health benefits of beef from the perspective of a cattle rancher that was ultimately amplified to the tune of 1.8 billion media impressions.

Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner. – managed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a contractor to the Beef Checkoff – tasked Linhart PR with amplifying its summer grilling marketing campaign that promoted beef as the top protein of the season. Using a strategic, multi-pronged approach, Linhart PR drove national news coverage in top-tier outlets, reaching more than 7.3 billion consumers with beef recipes and tips.

For Meyer Natural Foods, parent company of leading natural, organic and grass-fed protein brands, Linhart PR created a targeted, social content strategy, including paid programs, that outperformed almost every relevant food industry social media benchmark for effectiveness, efficiency and engagement.

In order to evolve the Horizon Organic brand beyond the dairy aisle, Horizon introduced new center-store products, including Macaroni and Cheese. Linhart PR planned and executed a "surprise and delight" program to drive awareness and trial of the new Mac and Cheese products.

In an effort to drive retailer traffic, encourage product trial and boost product sales to kick off the new year and healthier resolutions, Earthbound Farm, the country’s largest grower of organic produce, coordinated a “cart buy” program. Grocery shoppers in four markets were surprised by having their entire grocery cart purchased by Earthbound Farm, and Linhart PR helped drive consumer awareness and media coverage around the cart buys.

As part of a well-rounded, integrated communications program for Verlasso salmon, Linhart PR created Currents, a bi-monthly e-newsletter featuring high-quality content, carefully crafted to meet the company's strategic goals. Topics included fresh takes on the Verlasso difference, interviews with retailers and chefs using Verlasso, sustainability trends and updates, and recipes from notable chefs and foodies.

Linhart PR expanded Verlasso's owned online channels to effectively tell its story -- that not all farmed salmon are created equal and Verlasso salmon is a delicious, sustainable option for fish lovers. Verlasso also established itself as a sustainable aquaculture thought leader and source for food news.

Linhart PR developed and executed a multi-pronged and award-winning approach to combat misperceptions, manage misinformation and educate audiences about Verlasso’s sustainability practices to help drive online engagement, sales and media coverage.

Verlasso salmon earned the coveted “Good Alternative” buy ranking from the Monterey Bay Aquarium® Seafood Watch® program, making Verlasso the first and only ocean-raised farmed salmon to receive this ranking. Linhart PR spread the word about this new ranking to overcome long-held, negative stereotypes about farmed salmon and convince target audiences that Verlasso salmon is a thoughtful, healthy, sustainable and delicious choice.

Since partnering with LPR, Verlasso has earned the coveted “Good Alternative” buy ranking from the Monterey Bay Aquarium® Seafood Watch® program and benefitted from positive news stories in outlets like USA Today and Food & Wine; engaged with sustainability, nutritionist and celebrity trainer influencers; and landed several new retailers and chefs.

For the Laura’s Lean natural proteins brand, Linhart PR led a dramatic revamp of Facebook and Instagram.The relaunch resulted in off-the-charts growth in engagement and impressions, while driving more than 13,000 consumers to the brand’s e-commerce store in just four months.

Laura’s Lean Beef created a range of recipes – think nachos, burgers with a variety of flavor profiles, a meatball sub and more – to demonstrate how a great-tasting, game-watching party doesn’t have to be full of fat, calories and artificial ingredients. Linhart PR executed an integrated traditional and social media program for Laura’s Lean Beef to push out the football campaign messages and new recipes to the target audience in all the places they like to receive information and news.

In partnership with Linhart PR, Laura’s Lean – an industry leader for its all-natural, vegetarian-fed and antibiotic-free protein options, including ground beef – launched a social food influencer campaign to generate beautiful, engaging recipes and photos, and expose new consumers to the Laura’s Lean brand during times when people are thinking about grilling beef.