November 1, 2016

Scrumptious on Social

By Gill Ingram at Figaro Digital

It doesn’t take much scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed, Instagram or Twitter before you find yourself confronted with some kind of #FoodPorn post. Following on from the success of Buzzfeed’s ‘Tasty’ Facebook channel, more and more brands are turning to their snappy, minimalist recipe videos for inspiration to market their own products on social media.

International Appeal

The imitability of Tasty’s style is undeniable, and its marketability across cultural divides can be seen within its own international offshoots, such as Proper Tasty (UK), Einfach Tasty (Germany) and Tasty Demais (Brazil). These videos, despite their global premise, require very little language ability to understand them, because they are communicating with something far more universally understood: the language of yumminess.

Inspiring New Ideas

With such a huge following, it is no surprise then that food brands have been quick to catch on to this new trend, investing in Tasty-style campaigns of their own. Communities such as Tastemade have seen a huge rise in engagement, and brands like Quaker Oats, Kellogg’s and Sainsbury’s have all been releasing their own recipe videos. Lorna Kimberly, director of marketing at Mizkan Euro, says: “Consumers today are being more experimental with their meals, so part of our marketing strategy for our heritage brands like Branston Pickle and Haywards Pickled Veg is to demonstrate their versatility through branded recipe content.” It is an opportunity for brands to share new ways of cooking, eating and inventing with their products, with the potential to reach whole new audiences with their ideas.

 

Far and Wide

Jonathan Almond, creative director of Delightful Media, who deal exclusively in marketing campaigns for food and drinks brands, says: “I think what’s more important [than the video itself] is the way it spreads. They say that for every one person that shares it ten more people will see it. The great thing about Facebook is as soon as anyone likes a video it’s got a good chance of showing up in their news feed, and so then all their friends can see it.”

 

Like-Minded Consumers

Today there’s a great deal of onus on food and drinks brands in particular to have a clear and unique personality with which to promote their products. With consumers becoming more conscious of the health benefits and implications of what they eat, brands must attempt to capitalise on that interest to initiate a conversation with their potential consumers, and rely on their brand personality to engage customers and generate potential leads. One way to do this is to associate your brand with a particular influencer who already has a relationship with the consumer you are trying to reach.

Although Delightful Media, like many marketers, regularly uses influencers to promote brands, Almond reminds us that flexibility when it comes to social media is the key to making the most of your resources: “With Facebook it’s important to think about every piece of content individually and you have to assume a lot of the people who will discover that video won’t know anything about that channel. So it’s probably not worth leading it with talent, which is why I think this hand-recipe style content is doing so well. We get so many companies asking for five Tasty-style videos, everyone’s seen Tasty from Buzzfeed and that’s what kind of launched the genre.”

Tracking Progress

With more and more people doing their weekly grocery shop online, video content on social media is an increasingly popular way for brands to get across their message to customers. Vhari Russell of The Food Marketing Expert says: “The key trend is for brands to create great content with a clear message to engage and to be shared.” The availability of analytics on social media means brands can easily see how far their content is travelling and who is interacting with it, making it an incredibly versatile platform.

Kimberly stresses the importance of maintaining the content quality. Social media is not a place to get complacent: “If doing it properly branded content should not be approached any differently to editorial – would you watch it, and if you wouldn’t then why would anyone else? Brand ads that we remember the most come down to the story being told – the quality of the content. That’s why we always seek to partner with creative chefs and bloggers that really embody our brands, but also allow us to tap into potential new food trends and help us reach a new wave of consumers.

http://www.wearedelightful.com/


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By Gill Ingram at Figaro Digital