HOW TASTEMADE TOOK OVER THE VIDEO SCENE
By ICX Media - May 08, 2018
A success story to learn from
We’ve all experienced it: you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed and you come across a recipe video that stops you in your tracks. Whether it’s for Hasselback potatoes or apple cream cheese rose tarts, you pause your social scrolling and watch the short video. Wouldn’t you know, most of those videos are produced by Tastemade. The stellar ‘hands-on’ videography and sound-off combination draws viewers in at an unparalleled rate and has helped Tastemade build its vast following. In fact, Tastemade has a global audience of over 200 million that stream more than 2 billion views per month.
What exactly separates Tastemade from other video content producers? There are three major components that play into the company’s rapid success:
The mobile-first difference
Yes, other brands produce similar content, so why does Tastemade’s stand out? While “the basis of our company is connecting the world through food," Oren Katzeff, head of programming at Tastemade said, "we make sure our Tastemade content maintains the same quality and style.” This commitment to consistency is part of their brand strategy and has made Tastemade videos recognizable from the litany of competitors.
A second and equally important reason is that they were among the first to switch their content strategy to mobile-first and optimize their videos for each individual social media platform. “From the beginning, Tastemade’s been a mobile-first video network. That’s provided us with an early advantage in connecting with millennials, who use their devices as the “screen of choice” when it comes to entertainment. Mobile-first distribution has also been key given our longstanding partnerships with Snapchat, Facebook, and YouTube, where we optimize every piece of content specific to the platform where it appears,” said Andrew Saunders, head of global brand strategy at Tastemade.
Tastemade recognized the demand for engaging video content and understood that their millennial audience craved these snippet videos, but that in order to reach their target consumers, mobile-first and consistent quality were the only ways to break through and make a lasting impression on their social audience.
Variety of content
Beyond instructional food videos, Tastemade invested in other types of video content to engage its audience and provide a different level of interaction with its followers. They have a roster of “Tastemakers,”cooking personalities from around the world, who host their own shows and contribute to Tastemade’s growing follower base by interacting on social media channels. The Tastemade community responds extremely well to the Tastemakers and often reach out if they haven’t seen new content from their favorite personalities.
“It’s not uncommon for us to get some Twitter feedback from our fans who say, ‘Where’s Frankie Cooks? He hasn’t been on Snapchat in two days, where did he go?'” said Katzeff. “I think we’ve got the right mix of people and content opportunities, and what we’re trying to do is showcase the talent that we know our audience loves, while at the same time introducing new faces over time.” By adding real people and personalities to their video content, Tastemade generated an opportunity for its fans to connect with individuals and establish a connection with them in a way that food-only videos could not achieve.
Humanizing their video content and giving their audience a reason to tune in, comment, and request more from Tastemade is a large part of their success and incredible rise in followers across various social media channels.
Planning for the future
As Tastemade continues its quest to connect the world through food, they realized that there’s more to offer their audience than food-focused videos. People watch Tastemade videos because they’re passionate or excited about food or cooking, and this opened up a new opportunity for the business: honing in on other types of passions such as travel and lifestyle. These are two natural off-shoots from cooking as they are two areas where many people spend a lot of time and resources. But what differentiates Tastemade from competitors such as Pinterest or Airbnb is that their travel and home design sections maintain the same quality, aesthetic, and optimization as their food videos and cooking shows. These videos are meant to be watched, shared, and engaged with. Tastemade highly values its watch time metric and only considers a video a success when someone watches a significant portion - if not all - of a video.
With these two new segments, Tastemade has opened the door to innumerable content opportunities and partnerships that will continue to set it apart from their competitors. Tastemade’s ability to anticipate its consumers wants and needs before they ask, or worse look elsewhere, has played a hand in their quick and steady success.
While the video marketing landscape is growing in competition, Tastemade is strategically placed at the forefront because of its ingenuity, commitment to quality, and investment in top quality video content. They have developed a recipe that works for various interests and they continue to penetrate new global markets by rolling out their tried-and-true methodologies. With this kind of appreciation for specific markets and demographics, it is no wonder the company continues to lead the video marketing industry in best practices and innovation.