Tasty Gives Brands New Phone-to-Table Offerings

BuzzFeed just announced two new offerings: a countertop smart appliance called Tasty One Top and an all-new Tasty iPhone app featuring more than 1,700 videos of recipes from their wildly popular Tasty network.  The two work in tandem to make meal prep practically "paint by numbers."  And the opportunities for brand integration are, ahem, delicious.

Tasty, like all BuzzFeed franchises, disrupted the already popular recipe category with its 30-second to two-minute long step-by-step cooking videos meant to be easily shared on social channels.  Tasty's rocket to fame is rather remarkable given the tens of thousands of existing online cooking videos and mega-popular cooking channels.  Their equal success in driving in-store traffic for partnering brands has also been proven.

For example, a branded video with Ritz Crackers showing the Ritz logo and box in a holiday recipe created a 2.1% sales lift and a 1.2x return on ad spend -- numbers that dwarf other forms of online advertising, partly due to the massive user uptake.

The two-year-old Tasty brand counts more than 58 billion lifetime video views across Facebook, YouTube and Instagram and reaches more than 420M individuals a month.*  (Tasty's most popular video of all time explains How To Regrow Fruit From Your Kitchen, with 308.5 million views and more than 8.4 million shares.)

(Download the full case study below.)

"Not only are we continuing to innovative with new products, but through the case study with Ritz we also have proof that Tasty's branded content works for advertisers, too," said Ashley McCollum, General Manager of Tasty.  "Expanding the Tasty brand makes BuzzFeed an even stronger partner for advertisers.  We are constantly looking to be more creative and more innovative to grow our business and look for opportunities to do this with brands all the time."

Like everything BuzzFeed, the Tasty videos' appeal is that users see a totally different view than the other videos in the online cooking space. What they won't see on Tasty are the Internet's most hated forms of advertising: popups, banners, modal ads or auto-playing video ads. BuzzFeed has pioneered an approach to working with brands to create stories that audiences will share across their social networks. Brand integration is seamless, putting the company's name before millions of viewers without being obtrusive.

Tasty:  Ripe with Brand Opportunity

Now, per McCollum, The Tasty One Top and app demonstrate the company's "commitment to the intersection of content and technology, marking the beginning of the next step in the evolution of our business as we expand into new ways of using technology to bring people together around food." BuzzFeed and Tasty's opportunities for brands are endless.

The Tasty One Top appliance is an example of even broader brand integrations that are possible with BuzzFeed and its multiple franchises.  With massive built-in audiences and global distribution, creating products with BuzzFeed Product Labs is a level playing field.  The One Top was brought to life with the help of GE Appliance's First Build team.

What?  You didn't know that BuzzFeed had Product Labs?  Or that they had their eye on remarkable and disruptive brand partnerships for their products?  Read on!

The Bluetooth-enabled Tasty One Top induction cooktop is a logical extension of the Tasty brand and a bold move for a company built on content. Billed as "the only cooking appliance you'll ever need," it's available for $149 pre-order.  The sleek cooktop features induction technology that is faster, safer and more precise than traditional forms of cooking.

But the true efficiency is the one-two punch of the One Top used for the more than 1,700 recipes explained in the simple, user-friendly swipe interface in Tasty-style iPhone app videos.  The clips are shot from above, featuring only an aerial view of a pair of hands going through the preparations' step-by-step instructions.  There's no music and the steps are so clearly demonstrated that no talking is necessary.

Opportunities for brand tie-ins are abundant on Tasty, where in-house experts help brands craft original branded content designed for sharing on social networks and BuzzFeed properties.

The rapid success of Tasty has led to other specialized spin-off pages including Proper Tasty, Tasty Demais, Tasty Miam, Einfach Tasty, Tasty Japan, Bien Tasty,Tasty Vegetarian, Tasty One-Pot and Tasty Jr.  Advertisers who want a taste of Tasty's successful formula would be wise to start cooking up partnerships now.

*Source: Graph API for Facebook, Tubular for Instagram and YouTube Stats.

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