The Campaign Brief
The Honey Baked Ham Company is entering the Holiday 2026 season with its most visible marketing push in recent memory, naming Kylie Kelce — podcast host and mother of four — as brand ambassador and launching a national campaign titled "Traditions That Bring Us Home." The effort runs through the holiday season across TV, streaming, digital, social, and radio, and is designed to extend the 65-year-old brand's reach beyond its established loyalist base to younger family households.
With more than 400 locations nationwide, HoneyBaked operates a retail-foodservice hybrid model built around peak holiday dayparts — primarily Thanksgiving and Christmas. The chain's signature product, a bone-in spiral-sliced ham smoked for up to 24 hours and individually hand-glazed, anchors a full holiday menu that also includes premium turkey breasts, heat-and-serve sides such as Double Cheddar Mac & Cheese and Maple Sweet Potato Soufflé, and desserts. The off-premise orientation — guests order online and schedule in-store pickup — makes the brand's Q4 window its highest-stakes operational period of the year.
Why the Ambassador Pick Matters
Kelce's selection reflects a deliberate generational positioning. Chief Commercial Officer Maegan Markee framed the hire not just as a celebrity endorsement but as the opening move in a wider marketing overhaul. "This holiday also marks the start of a broader marketing transformation for HoneyBaked," Markee said, "one that honors our heritage and celebrates our loyalists while finding new ways to connect with the next generation of HoneyBaked customers." For a brand whose customer acquisition has historically relied on word-of-mouth and repeat household purchase, the shift toward paid media at scale — and a spokesperson with a large social following — signals a meaningful change in go-to-market strategy.
Kelce's connection to the brand is positioned as organic rather than transactional. Her family has served HoneyBaked product at holiday meals for years, and she cited the Cinnamon Apples side item as a multigenerational touchpoint — a detail that gives the campaign narrative specificity that generic holiday advertising typically lacks. For operators and retail-foodservice buyers tracking celebrity-driven LTO and seasonal marketing trends, that kind of authentic product integration tends to outperform broad lifestyle endorsements in driving trial.
Operator Context
HoneyBaked's holiday push lands during a period when specialty food retailers and foodservice operators are competing aggressively for the at-home entertaining dollar. Consumer spending on premium proteins and heat-and-serve sides has remained resilient even as broader foodservice traffic has softened, and chains with strong off-premise and pre-order infrastructure are positioned to capture share from scratch-cooking households looking to simplify holiday meal preparation. Culinary Director Chef Tim Ziga underscored that angle, noting HoneyBaked's value proposition centers on reducing kitchen labor without sacrificing table quality.
The brand's pre-order and scheduled-pickup model also reduces last-minute demand volatility — a supply chain and labor advantage worth noting for multi-unit operators benchmarking holiday fulfillment strategies. Guests can place orders now at HoneyBaked.com and select a pickup window closer to Thanksgiving or Christmas, smoothing throughput at the store level during the chain's peak weeks.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
