The Birth of a Cultural Icon: PruPointers
Today, Prudence McCoy is a name, and a face, known around the world. Elegant, sophisticated and worldly, she’s dined at the White House, hosted ‘Saturday Night Live’ and graced the cover of ‘Rolling Stone’ – twice. Martha Stewart considers her a friend and an inspiration.
For the past decade, Prudence Mary McCoy has continued, and expanded, the work begun by her mother, Prudence Morris McCoy, nearly forty years ago. What her mother started as a modest newsletter (“PruPointers”) of helpful household hints has grown into a media empire.
The helpful hints and practical solutions to every day problems provided by “PruPointers” are read and seen by tens of millions of ardent fans everywhere in the world. The “PruPointers” column is syndicated in over six hundred newspapers and translated into thirty-three different languages. The “PruPointers” television show is beamed to over one hundred and seventy countries. “PruPointer” books have sold more than fifty million copies.
The audience for “PruPointers” is eclectic and international, serving a global village which transcends cultural differences and geographical boundaries. People as different and diverse as Bedouin nomads, bankers in Bangladesh and Belgium homemakers turn to “PruPointers” to solve perplexing every day problems. The Peace Corps provides each of its volunteers with a copy of “PruPointers” when they’re posted to locations around the world.
“PruPointers” was voted Best Known Brand by the International Product Branding Association for the last five years. It’s been estimated that “PruPointers” is recognized by more people than Coca-Cola or Brittany Spears.
“PruPointers” is an amazing success story which had its humble beginnings, nearly fifty years ago, at the breakfast room table of a recently widowed mother in Flushing, Queens, New York.