Editorial giant Time Inc. will treat consumers to food-centric viral content through its new Well Done brand, which will offer videos about the latest food trends, news and recipes via social outlets.
Well Done will leverage the full scope of Time Inc.’s 48 million social followers across multiple channels in the food space, while also coordinating with the company’s Digital Food Desk (part of an overall reorganization of its editorial infrastructure) and test kitchen studios in Birmingham, Alabama. Time Inc. will look to replicate the success of Buzzfeed’s Tasty, a comfort food video series geared towards Facebook, which touts consistent virality and 80 million followers on the platform.
“There is nothing more fun than watching a skilled person do their skill — no matter the medium people love to watch food be made, that is never going to change, how and where they watch it will,” said Stacey Rivera, director of Time Inc.’s digital food desk and digital content director of Cooking Light and MyRecipes.
Well Done
The brand will offer a daily, video-only slate of innovative new recipes, food explainers, hacks and food news geared to a social and mobile audience. Well Done launches from the MyRecipes Facebook page, and will also debut on Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Pinterest.
The video content will also be widely distributed across all of Time Inc.’s broad food portfolio, which includes Cooking Light, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Health, People Food, Southern Living and Extra Crispy.
A press release cites the explosive success of food content as integral to the motivation behind Well Done, and the brand will build on Time Inc.’s successes it has already earned in the food video space — the company currently touts more than 120 million monthly video views. Well Done also leverages Time Inc.’s expertise in data and personalization, delivering targeted content directly to the consumer.
“Time Inc. brands cover all corners of food — recipes, restaurants, celebrity and health,” Ms. Rivera said. “We are uniquely positioned to give our audience a trusted and fun food brand and to provide advertisers with new native opportunities, including custom videos and social programs.”
Editorial content
Time Inc. properties have been putting some serious investment into the social space, editorial sectors notwithstanding. Its Sports Illustrated property cross-promoted over Facebook Live and Snapchat to promote its annual Swimsuit Issue covered by perennial favorite Kate Upton (see story).
Many editorial departments are turning to Snapchat Discover to provide granular content, including Time Inc.’s Entertainment Weekly and Essence brands. Growing a Snapchat Discover cohort within a newsroom could allow publications to experiment with more granular coverage on the platform, which is designed to be adjacent to the daily updates from friends that users check for on their own feeds (see story).
“Time Inc has the unique ability to cover every aspect of our users food life: from restaurants to health to celebrity and recipes and from print to digital to social to video — we are reaching our users everywhere they are.” Ms. Rivera said.
By Rakin Azfar
