Submitted by Cercone Brown Company

Upstate Getaway with Newell Brands

Cercone Brown Company staged an Upstate Getaway media immersion for Newell Brands across two curated sessions, producing organic coverage and over 12M social impressions.

The result? A surge of organic coverage, over 12M social impressions, and glowing feedback that reinforced the power of immersive, cross-brand storytelling.social impressions

Case in 60 seconds

Newell Brands holds iconic household names including Sharpie, Coleman, Yankee Candle and Graco, and while Cercone Brown Company had supported several of those brands individually, Newell itself remained unrecognised as the company behind them.

The work appears to turn on the observation that media relate to products rather than to parent companies, so Newell could only be established as the power behind the portfolio by letting writers handle several of its brands in one sitting.

Rather than pitching Newell as a corporate story, the agency built an immersive Upstate Getaway that put the portfolio in front of media as a single hands-on encounter with the parent company as the connecting thread.

Across two curated sessions, top-tier writers and influencers attended an Upstate Getaway and tried new products from a range of the household brands, engaging with the portfolio in hands-on ways that produced content across earned and social channels.

Cercone Brown Company reports a surge of organic coverage, over 12M social impressions and glowing feedback, which the agency reads as confirmation that immersive cross-brand storytelling drives results across earned and social channels.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

Top-tier writers and influencers invited to the immersion, described by the page as media rather than as consumers.
Newell Brands sits behind names such as Sharpie, Coleman, Yankee Candle and Graco that carry their own recognition, so the parent company has no natural claim on the coverage its products attract.
The page positions Newell as the powerhouse behind the individual brands, which makes the parent company the organising frame for an experience that would otherwise read as several unrelated product previews.
Based on the available evidence, the work assumes that writers and influencers produce warmer content about products they have used in person, since the agency attributes the authentic storytelling to hands-on engagement rather than to briefing materials.

Creative & Execution System

Partners

  • Cercone Brown Company (lead_agency)

Participation mechanic

  • Attendees experienced new products from a range of the portfolio brands in hands-on ways across two curated sessions, and that direct product engagement is what the agency credits with sparking the resulting content.

Creator role

  • top-tier writers and influencers

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult type
social impressionsThe result? A surge of organic coverage, over 12M social impressions, and glowing feedback that reinforced the power of immersive, cross-brand storytelling.impressions

Why Cercone Brown Company's strategy worked

  1. 1

    A parent company can be introduced through its own brands rather than through corporate messaging, because attendees who handle several products in one setting encounter the portfolio as one entity without being told to.

  2. 2

    Running the experience as two curated sessions rather than one large event suggests that hands-on product time depends on group size, since the reported authentic connections require attention the agency can only give to a small room.

  3. 3

    Hosting writers and influencers together appears to convert a single event into both earned coverage and social reach, which is how one hosting exercise returns results on two channels at once.

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