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Leaning on the Product Experts
Ideal for group cooking and versatile outdoor recipes, the Jetboil TrailCook Stove Systems feature an integrated turn-and-click ignition with a proprietary heat regulator, allowing camp chefs to control heat output from a rolling boil to sauteéing and simmering.
To highlight this new product innovation, we designed a pre-launch, multi-day canoe-camping trip for four media outlets, letting the collection shine in its intended use case: making hot, delicious recipes like chili and apple crisp in the remote corners of Maine’s Allagash Wilderness Waterway.
As everyone knows, a media trip is only as good as the people on it, and the right mix of folks makes all the difference. We targeted a group of media that we thought would travel well together and who are experts in their fields.
This group included Adam Ruggiero, Editor-in-Chief at GearJunkie; Alisha McDarris, Co-founder of Terradrift; Bob Myaing, Gear Editor at Field Mag; and Ryan Wichelns, Founding Editor of Trails Magazine.
Mapping the Route
Maine was the natural destination choice for this trip. Jetboil’s ties to Old Town Watercraft and the brand’s New England-based team in attendance gave the trip a real sense of place.
Working with Jetboil’s marketing team, we mapped routes based on seasonality, water levels, logistics, and budget, ultimately settling on the Saint Croix River. Jetboil’s principal engineer was also on the trip, giving media firsthand insight into the specs and the R&D behind TrailCook’s innovation.
When Plan B Became Plan A
Everything looked perfect, until it wasn’t. Unfortunately, throughout August and September 2025, roughly 60% of Maine fell into a severe drought during the state’s sixth-driest summer on record. Only two weeks out, the Saint Croix dropped to a historic low and became unnavigable.
This is where preparation and communication came into play. With the help of our guide, Dave Conley of Canoe the Wild, we pivoted to the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and kept both Jetboil and all four journalists updated in real time. The trip stayed on schedule, and by Day 2, everyone had forgotten it was Plan B.
The unexpected change delivered an even more memorable experience, reinforcing an important lesson: thoughtful contingency planning and transparent communication can turn a potential setback into one of the strongest stories of the trip.
An Outsized Impact
By launch time, the trip quickly proved its ROI, turning a small sample pool into outsized, credible coverage. Placements landed in Field Mag, Terradrift, and GearJunkie reaching a combined audience of 2M.
Coverage emphasized TrailCook’s heat control and versatility, exactly the positioning the launch set out to prove. And perhaps just as valuable, the Jetboil and Darby team left Maine with four stronger editorial relationships than when we started.
The key to curating the right media activation is understanding who the product is for.
