Spice Up Your Event Strategy

The popularity of cooking shows on the Food Network and other streaming services provide chefs a bigger stage today than ever before. With their restaurants, cookbooks, and TV shows, many celebrity chefs have well-established brands, making them staples of pop culture. 

As a result, people are craving more ways to connect with their favorite chefs. This presents opportunities to deliver what audiences want by combining culinary talent with events. Utilizing celebrity chefs can be done in person or virtually to create exclusive dining experiences worthy of whetting any audience’s appetite.

Here are five tips to help you harness culinary magic for your next event.  

1. Chefs are the new rock stars

Capitalize on how culture continues to launch chefs into rock-star status. Their personalities are no longer confined to the kitchen—they’re now highly sought-after celebrities with stories beyond the skillet. Give them a stage and they will serve up quality content for your audience.

2. Cooking can showcase new technology

Learning new cooking methods and recipes is a great way to integrate technology. When tasked with building hype around the Food Network Kitchen integration with Alexa, we brought in Guy Fieri to put on a show at CES. He displayed Alexa’s benefits in the kitchen while showing the audience how to make a few signature recipes before teaming with Shaq to demo a featured cocktail. 

3. It directly supports the restaurant industry

The restaurant industry lost millions of jobs in 2020. As it continues to claw its way back to pre-pandemic levels, it’s important to remember the impact of supporting local establishments. Keep nearby restaurants and chefs in mind when activating in person, and highlight the importance of eating local wherever possible.

4. Explore alternative eating habits

By introducing new types of dishes, you can help your audience expand their palette. It can be as simple as putting a new spin on an old favorite—like when we brought Ayesha Curry and Danone’s So Delicious Dairy Free together to promote the brand’s new plant-based Shreds, Spreads, and Slices. Through this partnership, Ayesha shared dairy-free versions of her family’s go-to recipes for a Chicken Parm Burger and the Ultimate Grilled Cheese.  

5. Pair celebrities with wine

It’s common knowledge that the right wine can complement the right meal. But, with so many celebrities owning wineries and vineyards, from Dave Matthews to Mary J. Blige, it provides another opportunity to integrate star power into your next event. It’s an example of how celebrities have become multi-hyphenate success stories—a topic we’ll discuss more in our upcoming newsletter.