CARAWAY
CARAWAY
The hero ad that just won’t quit.
Caraway approached us in 2020 to launch their first ever video creative targeted at 18-34 y.o. women.
A 2-month creative process yielded the most successful video campaign in this space.
It’s still running as of 2022 – unheard of in the world of D2C advertising, where campaigns fatigue after days or weeks.
Our campaign was so undeniably successful they came back to us in 2021 to help launch bakeware!
Caraway continues to grow off the back of our ads today!
Caraway pulled a Kim K. and broke the internet with the launch of their high-aesthetic pans. Now they needed our help to break it again, with their first-ever video creative.
And break we did. We’re still breaking it, in fact – our ads are still active two years on from the initial deployment, which is unheard of in the wacky world of d2c. Just sayin’.
Okay, enough bragging. Let’s get down to how we did it.
Overview
In September of 2020, fresh off the back of our successful thumb-stopping campaign with OurPlace, we were approached by “the pan [company] that broke the internet” – Caraway – to conceptualize, develop, execute and deploy their first-ever video campaigns for omnichannel placement.
After a hugely successful launch earlier in 2020, Caraway came to us hoping to leverage their beautiful photo campaigns with an initial foray into video.
The goal was simple: attract new customers to the brand with bespoke video that speaks to their demographic of 18-34 yo. women, both visually and narratively. Their aim was to not only increase brand awareness for high-funnel audiences, but also to convince low-funnel users to finally take the plunge on a $400 pan set.
With our objectives identified, we set about launching Caraway into the video space with a comprehensive campaign that got people asking the question: “Is my cookware relationship toxic?”
The Challenge
Caraway came to us because they had zero experience with video. With only photo assets to support their marketing efforts, the Caraway team was looking at a giant black hole in their strategy – a gaping marketing void where video should be.
Their photo campaigns were extremely successful, and it makes sense – just look at these stunning images of their vibrantly-colored pans – but they were leaving money on the table by not taking advantage of the strong sales opportunities that video provides.
So how do we take the successes of the photo campaigns and build on them in the video world?
The State of Affairs
The Caraway team had identified this wide-reaching, omnichannel video campaign as a dual-pronged strategy to capture both high-funnel and low-funnel users in a single deployment – allowing the brand to position various cuts to target specific audiences in ways their static imagery did not allow for, and to speak to each group more directly in a way that would increase conversions.
Not only would it allow them to show the pan being used by the target demographic in the home – a foundational aspect of any cookware product – but it would also give them the distinct opportunity to demonstrate how the core USPs of the product were superior to their competitors.
For Caraway, this campaign would tackle the critical need to shape the narrative of WHY the Caraway pan is the best pan in the world, as opposed to their previous work, which simply highlighted the beauty and aesthetic of the product in the user’s home in still images.
In short: this was Caraway’s first REAL step into a direct and comprehensive sales campaign that relied on more than just beautiful pans. They were ready to compete with the big boys and they needed to communicate with their audience why they had more to offer than the Cuisinarts of the world.
The (non-)Sticking Points
The obstacles to executing this campaign were vast, considering the well-established and highly-competitive field of cookware. With so many competing brands (with FAR more market share than a brand that had existed for less than a year), we had our work cut out for us.
Before we even started on production, we had to make sure we understood the problems we faced. Working together with the internal marketing team at Caraway, we audited the landscape to understand exactly what we were up against.
Here’s what we found:
Cookware is a commodity. Caraway faced an eye-watering number of competitors who do what they do (and had been doing it for decades, even centuries in some instances).
Previously they had differentiated solely on aesthetics – but now we had to sell the pan’s features and USPs, too. So how do we narratively differentiate them from the others who – let’s be honest – all have similar features?
How do we justify the price point? How do we convince people this pan is worth the $400 price tag?
How do we position Caraway as not only an aesthetic masterpiece in the pan world, but also the only choice for healthy, clean eating?
How do you educate the consumer on the toxic chemicals found in 90% of cookware, but not do it in a way that seems condescending, scary or otherwise offensive?
How do you reach a broader audience than Caraway’s core demographic while not alienating the current demo?
We spent the first month of our process researching each of these core problems and shaping the campaign to address them. Only once we felt comfortable with our answers to these questions, did we begin the nuts-and-bolts creation process in earnest.
With the project and audiences clearly defined, with the questions about our competitive landscape and brand positioning answered, we set about creating the campaign.
Considering the potential upsides of video, it also meant that we had to absolutely NAIL this campaign. And nail we did.
Now We’re Cooking
With our research and planning phases out of the way, it was time to start… panning for gold.
We worked closely with the Caraway team over the next month, pitching, revising, pitching, revising, and pitching and revising again, as we shaped both the visual and narrative elements of the campaign to reflect the answers to our key questions.
Having done a month’s worth of research, we had a good head-start on what to focus on and how.
Our five guiding principles for conceptualization were as follows:
Draw comparisons between Caraway and competitors. Differentiate both visually and narratively.
Educate on issues with traditional non-stick surfaces like Teflon, without being preachy or losing focus on the product.
Communicate the superior technical benefits of the product in comparison to other pans.
Show pans being used in ways that the audience will use them, but also balance it with aspirational elements (fancier, healthier dinners; mouth-watering kitchens).
Create an undeniable hook that will snatch our audience’s attention and frame the entire video in 3 seconds.
The Cook Hook
Most important amongst these principles was the hook.
Without something that will catch the audience’s attention, they won’t even see the rest of the ad, so we spent weeks (and hundreds of dollars in lattes that, looking back, weren’t that good) going back and forth with the Caraway team about what our hook should be.
Ultimately, we landed on one of the most successful text hooks that defined Caraway’s online presence in a single sentence.
This hook was the runaway winner.
The “ugly kitchen” format encapsulated a lot of the elements that were successful for Caraway’s previous efforts, while bringing something new and interesting to the conversation.
Here’s why it worked for us (and ultimately, the viewer):
Used language that is prominent amongst the demographic.
Extended beyond pan sets into a massive interest area of the demographic: love and relationships.
Created intrigue and curiosity for the user: “is my cookware relationship toxic? And what does that even mean?”
Visuals create a subconscious negative connotation to other pans – the sticky, messy, congested, overwhelming space of a cluttered kitchen.
When the room flips and you see the kitchen of Caraway – boom, that’s the entire ad in 1 seamless visual.
It’s a real-world problem that’s emotionally familiar to anyone who has ever cooked, ever
Negative hooks are absurdly effective as they’re rooted in the ugly truths of real life and real problems (a powerful counterpoint to the glossy perfection seen all over social media).
We also know “gross-out” hooks (e.g. those weird display ads of rotting fruit, jellyfish, etc. that you see in gossip websites) are extremely effective at activating the primal side of the brain, so we leaned into that.
We knew that the entire success of this project was dependent on nailing this hook, so we had to make sure we were able to grip the audience on an emotional level.
We did that by going after a shared experience amongst anyone who has ever cooked in 300,000 years of human history: it absolutely sucks to clean dirty pans.
By comparing the clean, beautiful, bespoke aesthetic of Caraway’s pan sets to the disgusting, degraded, sticky, nasty, brown, gray, and black monstrosities that are present in 99% of homes, we were able to strike a deep and resonant emotional chord with the audience that just worked.
Caraway had already done the work of making beautiful pans. Our job now was to show the audience how much more beautiful and easy their lives could get if they just clicked ‘buy’.
The Main Course
With the hook out of the way, it was time to get into the meat and potatoes of the ad: educating on the toxicity of Teflon and other nonstick, and differentiating Caraway from “the other guys.”
In terms of features, we already had the high ground. Caraway is non-toxic non-stick ceramic – which means it really is as clean, healthy and non-toxic as non-stick gets. In order to highlight these USPs, we went on the offensive against Toxic Teflon™ and all the other Nasty Pan Chemicals® by highlighting the problems with other pans (sticky, toxic, hard to clean, looks awful).
We focused not only on the health-related problems of Teflon, but we also took on less toxic competitors by showing how hard to clean and messy materials like steel are. When it came to features, it was a full frontal assault, and we took no pan prisoners.
One-by-one we identified common problems amongst the audiences we researched, bringing up the very real world issues people face in visually striking ways.
Got too many old, tired pans lying around, taking up space on the counter or in your cabinets? Too much clutter. No real storage solution.
How about food sticking to the surface, taking you literal hours to clean? Not using non-stick.
Any smoke coming off your Teflon pan? Well, cousin, those are toxic chemicals you’re breathing there.
We also made sure we kept the pace quick and tight, never dawdling too much on one particular thing. This helped us cast a wide net but still remain targeted – giving audiences a number of different pain points to react to.
We decided to focus on communicating these with easy-to-visually-translate USPs of the product. By focusing on only 3-4 USPs that were most important to the demographic, we were able to systematically dismantle the competitors, and easily and directly show – not tell – the audience how much better life could be with Caraway.
After the shoot, we worked diligently with the Caraway team, shaping the narrative together. How would we position the product? What’s the best way to talk about Teflon? What’s the best colorway to show in this shot? What angle shows the surface best? How’s my hair?
After a month of creative back-and-forth, we handed off our baby to the client. Now we had to wait anxiously for the results.
The Results
Our hard work panned out! (sorry)
These videos were hugely successful for Caraway, bringing movement and life to their previously-static assets.
Our “is your cookware relationship toxic?” hook ended up being an inch-perfect way to engage our target audience. Thanks to careful planning and diligent research, we had found the key to how to speak to Caraway’s audience in a way that would get them to pay attention – and ultimately to buy.
We were also extremely happy to see people responding to the competitor comparison angle of the videos. The comment sections were alive with people responding to toxic Teflon – with many reporting they had no idea Teflon was toxic in the first place, that they were unaware of ceramic non-stick, and that they would be switching today to protect themselves, their kids, even their birds!
And the visuals, OH the visuals! People couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful the pan sets looked. We made sure that every single shot was visually singing the praises of these glorious pans and it paid off in a big way.
A Cappuccino and Slice of Tiramisu
Ultimately, we hit all the goals that Caraway set out for us to do. We increased impressions for those just becoming aware of Caraway, hooking them with an interesting approach and educating them on the product and why it’s better than any old pan (and totally worth the $400).
For our low funnel users, we gave them an aspirational video of what their lives could be like with Caraway – much easier, much healthier and much, much more beautiful. These people had already been exposed to the striking aesthetic of the product, but now, with the education on why Caraway is better, they were much more likely to buy.
Perhaps most representative of just how effective this ad set was is that they’re still running them on all of their marketing channels today – TWO YEARS on from the initial launch – a completely unheard of success in the D2C world, where ads lose their effectiveness in weeks or even days.
Caraway went from having no video to having the most successful video campaign in the cookware space – almost overnight – seeing incredible returns from their very first campaign.
Caraway’s video launch was so successful that they came back to us early last year to help them launch a completely new bakeware line – another ad series that led to huge success for their brand and further established them as cookware and bakeware that not only looks good, but performs better than anything else.
Having cleared out plates and done the dishes (there were so many dishes)... it was time for a well-earned food coma.