Creative Brief

Food, the universal language of love. For Christmas 2023, Capital set out to gather, print and gift our love for our team, and clients in the form of a cookbook. We began this year-long project with a 3-person team doing firmwide outreach requesting favorite recipes. With regular reminders, contests, and insistent encouragement, we surpassed our goal of 100 - collecting 122 recipes from 46 staffers.

The creative process included both marketing and executives. Marketing developed multiple looks and  layouts, and formally presented the concepts and budget. Upon approval, marketing fleshed out formatting, design, graphics, transitions, and non-food content. While under design, the team developed and honed the recipient list and solicited printing estimates.

Throughout development, amazing stories emerged. Like the 4^th generation Japanese American Thanksgiving stuffing recipe which perfectly encapsulating the holidays (page 25).These stories, photos and recipes from varied cultures melded together like a great sauce, making this book a beautiful expression of Capital’s team.

Upon delivery of printed books, the Capital team packaged the cookbooks in logo-blue padded packaging and included a custom Christmas card expressing our love and gratitude. The cookbooks were primarily hand-delivered to clients and team members with a select few mailed. A quantity of books was reserved for gifting to new clients throughout the year as a way of introducing the Capital Family.

This submission is engineered to showcase our marketing team's passionate pursuit of a meaningful, insightful and effective client gift, just as the recipes are uniquely "engineered to delight." Bon Appetit!