Harry and David’s Post Cereals promo

Next to milk, fruit is the most popular accompaniment for breakfast cereal – or so Harry and David hopes. The Medford, OR-based gourmet fruit and foods cataloger has teamed up with Post Cereals for a cross-promotion of the companies’ products.

The promotion links Harry and David’s Fancy Fruit Toppers and Jar dried fruit set with Post Cereal’s Shredded Wheat. Harry and David showcases the tie-in with the copy for the dried fruit in its Harvest Festival 2000 catalog: “These colorful morsels include a recipe booklet from Post Cereals.” The copy also features a Post Cereals logo and a tag line suggesting the fruit toppers are “especially tasty on Post Shredded Wheat.”

For its part, Post Cereals plugs the catalog on its boxes of Shredded Wheat and other whole-grain cereals, says Nancy Tait, vice president of sales and marketing for $309 million Bear Creek Corp., Harry and David’s parent company.

“Post is giving its customers coupons for $5 off our Fruit Toppers, Oregold peaches, or any other purchase from the Harry and David catalog,” Tait says. “It’s really the Post customers who are getting an opportunity to save.” Harry and David is not offering its customers any discounts on Post products.

According to Tait, “Post approached us with the idea for the promotion.” The cereal company “wanted to cross-promote with a company that can fulfill the orders that might be generated if they advertised the tie-in on a 6 million-box run,” she says.

At press time it was too soon to evaluate the fruit and cereal program’s results, since the offer had “just hit the shelves,” says Tait. “But we have received orders in the first week of the promotion.”