• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, February 6, 2025

The Super Bowl hasn’t even started, but HexClad seems to have already scored a touchdown with a new ad campaign. Thanks to America’s love for alien-themed conspiracies, the company’s steady release of social-media posts featuring chef Gordon Ramsay and Area 51 innuendo got so much attention the campaign even made it to Snopes, the fact-checking website. And the late January reveal of the final ad spot, which features both Ramsey and actor Pete Davidson, is also racking up views.

“We've done our absolute best to create entertainment and engagement and already have created 6 billion impressions,” says Amir Mohamadzadeh, co-founder of Rosewood Creative, the agency behind the campaign. “We wanted to make sure that the Super Bowl is the final payoff.”

The idea behind the campaign started with wanting to showcase the brand's "out-of-this-world" technology, he tells Marketing Daily. A general escorts Ramsay (who is also an investor in the company) through Area 51's high-tech test kitchen, explaining that the pan’s technology comes from alien spacecraft and letting the chef know his help is needed with alien foodies who are here on earth.

The ad is a Super Bowl first for the brand, as well as the first time any cookware brand has been part of the Big Game. It is scheduled to appear in the first half.

The spot aims to blend culinary mastery with sci-fi intrigue, which HexClad fueled with a carefully timed content release. “More than anything, we wanted to tell a story that interested people,” Mohamadzadeh says.

"Unidentified Frying Object" kicked off weeks before the game with a viral social media strategy featuring a travel shot of Gordon Ramsay sitting on a private jet. Soon, mysterious Area 51 visits and corroborating "evidence" from various sources appeared, including TikTok personality Trevor Rainbolt, known for his geography sleuthing skills. Those videos racked up millions of views. Another TikTok personality, a flight attendant named @leyshaa, claimed to have worked on Ramsay’s suspicious journey. The brand partnered with an alien theorist, who noted similarities between the cookware’s design and UFO data.

Ramsay replied to all that noise with a coy video of his own, simply telling viewers the “proof is in the pan.”

Content also extended to the company’s ecommerce site, an Area 51 Test Kitchen landing page, special sales promotions, and an integrated social media campaign. 

HexClad, founded in 2016, “has never taken this big a swing before,” Mohamadzadeh says. “We wanted to go to the Super Bowl with a campaign that is atypical, builds awareness and puts a smile on people’s faces.”