General Mills wanted to generate sustainable media coverage beyond the food pages leading up to the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest.


To create an additional news hook for the 41st Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest, Coyne PR designed an announcement geared toward fashion and entertainment writers by joining the Pillsbury Bake-Off team in enlisting high-profile fashion designer, Isaac Mizrahi, to design the first-ever Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest apron, to be worn by all 100 finalists who would vie for the $1 million grand prize. Mizrahi, known for exploding onto the fashion scene in the late 1980s and for his exclusive collection at Target, was invited by Coyne to attend a media event to unveil the new apron. The team secured both local and national media to attend.

Media outlets across the country ate up the Mizrahi apron announcement, which generated nearly 6.5 million media impressions. Key placements included: Women’s Wear Daily, Entertainment Weekly, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and Yahoo! News, USA Today.com. In fact, the campaign was so successful that General Mills decided to continue the trend and partnered with designer Todd Oldham for the 42nd Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest.