During the late 1930s American Pop Corn began marketing a variety of popcorn brands, including Thunderbolt, Magic-Pop, and Giant Yellow South American Popcorn, designed for different markets, usually at lower prices. The minor brands sold well but not remarkably, so Howard decided to simplify the company's brand marketing to emphasize the Jolly Time brand. The idea proved to be appropriate to a new era that emerged for the company after C.H. Smith died in 1939, when Howard became president of American Pop Corn Company, and after World War II, when a new consumer era developed.