Turkey & the Wolf: Flavor Trippin’ in New Orleans
A First-Time Author Becomes a New York Times Best-Seller After Books are “Lost at Sea”
✢ BOOK REPRESENTATION + TOURS
✢ STRATEGY
✢ MEDIA RELATIONS
✢ THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
✢ PARTNERSHIPS
✢ BRAND POSITIONING
✢ EVENTS + ACTIVATIONS
Mason Hereford’s Turkey and the Wolf is an iconic brand with a cult-like following. Our mission for Mason’s debut cookbook? Make it an instant classic and an extension of a trusted and beloved lifestyle brand. All was going according to plan and then the books were quite literally lost at sea pre-launch due to the Madrid Bridge collapse. Invariable, the books needed to be reprinted and our publication date was pushed several months. Most teams would have cut their losses and tried to convince media to push coverage back where possible. Not this team.
Rather, we made “Lost at Sea” our whole personality, true to the Turkey and the Wolf brand. Limited edition merch, viral tweets, hysterical memes, and even a faux-launch party sponsored by TABASCO, pegged for the original pub-date. Fans loved being along for the ride and wanted to support a first-time author making lemonade out of lemons, and so, they purchased the merch, came to the restaurant, and pre-ordered in droves.
Media and awards committees took note. The debacle aired on CBS This Morning and The New York Times’ featured it in the breaking news section of the paper. Mason went on to appear on the TODAY Show (twice!) and Late Night with Seth Meyers. The book became a New York Times bestseller in its first week. Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin’ in New Orleans received coveted nominations from both the James Beard Foundation and IACP. Food & Wine later dubbed it one of the best cookbooks “of all time.”
