Imagine all the big moments in your life: The first time you had the 鈥渢alk鈥. Waiting anxiously with results in your hand. Catching your kid smoking.
Now imagine those moments鈥ut with grilling.
That鈥檚 the premise beyond a new 'Welcome to the Traegerhood' campaign from Traeger Grills and Zambezi, which digs into family tropes and centres them around food and community 鈥 or, in The Traegerhood parlance, at 鈥淭he intersection of taste and togetherness.鈥
In 'Birds and the Brisket,' a young girl asks where flavour comes from, and the mother hesitantly replies, 鈥淲hen people love food, very much鈥︹ before painting a magical picture of friends and grills.
In 'Big News,' a husband paces nervously in the kitchen as the wife enters, something clenched in her hand. When he finds out that the moment every young couple dreams about has arrived, he can barely contain his excitement, and immediately calls his parents to share the good news. Is it a boy? Is it a girl? Nope, it鈥檚 a brisket! (And the app in her hand says it鈥檚 done!)
Even in the Traegerhood, teens can be rapscallions. They just act out differently. A teenage boy comes into the kitchen, all furtive body language. 鈥淗ave you been smoking?鈥 his mother says. She marches him out to the grill, throws down a pack of sausages and says, 鈥淚鈥檓 going to watch you smoke the whole pack.
鈥淲elcome to the Traegerhood鈥 debuted in 2021, driving explosive growth for the brand and fuelling Traeger鈥檚 IPO. It鈥檚 such a rallying cry for the brand that Traeger CEO Jeremy Andrus now refers to himself as 鈥淢ayor of the Traegerhood.鈥 Traeger, the creator and market leader for the wood pellet grill category, has high awareness in the Intermountain West, but lower awareness in other markets. The campaign targets the mindset of a consumer who not only enjoys a great meal, but the experience of it as well 鈥 in other words, people who would love a Traeger but just don鈥檛 know it yet.
The work was shot by director Jeremy Saulnier, and will air in key strategic markets with the goal to further awareness of the brand and bring more consumers into the Traeger community.