We didn’t rush in with ad concepts and TikTok influencers. There was work to be done at the ground level. We started by clearly defining the brand, its positioning and ambitions. Not for consumers but for the C-suite and the employees. Everyone had to be on board with the same destination in mind. As part of that phase, we cleaned up their logo, fonts, color systems and gave them brand guidelines all their partners could leverage. Now, for the first time, HexClad had a sharp, modern and totally ownable brand to take to market.
Comfort zones are great—unless you’re trying to build a world-class culinary brand and business. Our job as HexClad’s agency partner is to provide honest counsel on their marketing efforts. One thing we felt strongly about was that, while social ads were performing extremely well, if they wanted monumental top-of-funnel growth, they had to look beyond the comfy confines of social media and make a big brand splash.
To bring that theory to life, we came to them with several broadcast campaign concepts. They loved two of them. Bonus feature: Gordon Ramsay, a true believer in the products from day one, was also in. With the ingredients in place, we set out to create two hardworking spots that took HexClad from a cookware brand to a category leader. The results speak for themselves.
As brands grow, so do their appetites. After all, when you have a reputation for quality and innovation, why stop at pots and pans? Some of the most fun we had was creating positioning platoforms and launch campaigns for HexClad’s full kitchen product lineup. Everything from an entirely new knives offering to category extenders like the dutch oven and cutting board. We assisted with everything from product naming, art direction and copy.
When you have access to a culinary legend with the star wattage of Gordon Ramsay, it’s easy to let his reputation do all the heavy lifting. The problem with that is that we’re trying to create a global cookware brand that can stand on its own merits for decades to come. That’s why we were judicious in how we leveraged Gordon Ramsay’s persona, diligently using his fantastic screen presence to add a (very large) punctuation mark to the point we’re making.