Part of selling premium cookware is selling the potential for cooking at home to become a premium experience. But a couple months into the COVID pandemic, cooking at home began to take on a decidedly un-aspirational tone: it reminded us of closed restaurants, cancelled gatherings, and the pandemic’s ongoing threat.

Our DTC sales were growing but I could see we needed to stay ahead of the shifting mood and offer our audience something aspirational. Plus, I could see outdoor recreation was set to boom.

Keeping budgets lean, I scheduled a sunrise and sunset photo/video shoot with a small camera crew, recipe developers, talent, and legendary chef Gregory Gourdet.

The resulting creative made for some of our most popular pandemic-era social & email content, and increased sales dramatically through the summer.

Plus, I was able to leverage it into several PR wins, gaining placements in publications from Cool Hunting to the Wall Street Journal.

Video clip, sample images, PR screengrabs and page 1 of creative brief below:

Last modified: September 16, 2025