News Corp’s leading food brands have been boosted by consumer demand for in-home cooking as the coronavirus pandemic forces people indoors.
Last week was the biggest of the year for the Food Corp brands, Delicious, Taste.com.au and Australia’s Best Recipes, which were up 29% year-on-year based on average daily unique browsers. Engagement was also up 46% while Delicious had its biggest week on record with a 84% jump in unique browsers.
To capitalise on this, the titles are all pivoting their content strategy as part of the new Together@Home platform.
Fiona Nilsson, News Corp Australia’s director of Food Corp, says the new climate has made brands think in new ways when it comes to advertising.
“Just as we are thinking about new ways to create relevant, meaningful content this is an opportunity for our client partners to think about new ways to connect with their consumers who are isolated and craving connections,” Nilsson says.
“We are currently working with them to integrate their brands into our new offerings to achieve this. In particular we are seeing that pantry products are going off like never before, such as canned goods, pasta, rice, flour, and more. Pantry loading behaviour means that there will be an abundance of light and lapsed buyers shopping categories, products and brands they might not normally shop for.
“Alcohol is another good example; with people restricted from going to bars we are setting up platforms for them to enjoy virtual drinks parties from home.”
As part of the new platform, Taste.com.au has launched Keep Calm Kitchen, Delicious has launched Out of Office and Australia’s Best Recipes has launched Pantry Heroes. All of the new offerings will provide new brand-led content through dedicated website sections and social activity such as virtual and live-streaming video series.
While the pandemic has put further pressure on advertising revenue across media companies, Nilsson says food has been an exception as people are staying at home and cooking more.
“It’s interesting, I guess due to the nature of our content and perhaps also due to the new initiatives we've launched, we have avoided mass cancellations,” she says.
“While there have been a few relating to clients needing new messaging, creative or due to product shortages, the overall impact at this stage is positive.”
Taste.com.au is breaking seven-day performance records with a slow cooker bread recipe, a homemade hand sanitiser article and easy dinners from pantry staples which generated 1.7 million page viewers alone, according to Adobe Analytics. Nilsson says this shows consumers want content with information and solutions.
“Brands that can make life easier for consumers by creating fewer things to worry about in their time of need and help them to connect will be rewarded with a greater share of gratitude, higher mental availability in the future and increased likelihood of being purchased again,” she says.
“Our audience is turning to us for guidance more than ever at this uncertain time and this is an opportunity for brands to partner and be involved in a movement to support consumers in the areas that are of most interest to them right now.”
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