Traeger Grills Reimagines Life's Big Moments with Barbecue

Imagine all the big moments in your life: The first time you had the “talk”. Waiting anxiously with results in your hand. Catching your kid smoking.

Now imagine those moments…but with grilling.

That’s 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 — or, in The Traegerhood parlance, at “The intersection of taste and togetherness.” 

In 'Birds and the Brisket,' a young girl asks where flavour comes from, and the mother hesitantly replies, “When people love food, very much…” 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’s a brisket! (And the app in her hand says it’s 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. “Have you been smoking?” his mother says. She marches him out to the grill, throws down a pack of sausages and says, “I’m going to watch you smoke the whole pack.

“Welcome to the Traegerhood” debuted in 2021, driving explosive growth for the brand and fuelling Traeger’s IPO. It’s such a rallying cry for the brand that Traeger CEO Jeremy Andrus now refers to himself as “Mayor of the Traegerhood.” 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 — in other words, people who would love a Traeger but just don’t 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.