ANALYSIS: Corporate profile - PR keeps Bear Creek success story going. Catalog concern Bear Creek doesn’t advertise, but each year its products find their way into thousands of American homes. How? A take-no-prisoners PR program from savvy pro Bil

When the Great Depression threatened to wipe out Bear Creek Orchards in the 1930s, the company’s two owners turned to public relations for help. They hired a PR firm to get them a New York hotel room and to arrange meetings with business leaders in the hopes of repositioning their pears as a perfect mail-order business gift. That campaign helped save the company.