3 Recipe Video Styles You Should Add To Your Marketing Strategy
Top-down, time-lapse videos have become a ubiquitous part of recipe marketing with major food brands and grocery retailers jumping on board with a style that was popularised by Buzzfeed's Tasty. They're still incredibly engaging. A video uploaded to the Tasty Facebook page just 41 minutes ago (at time of writing) already has a staggering 107.4k views. Back in 2018, we wrote this popular blog post about video and why it is dominating food marketing. It's probably an understatement to say that things have changed utterly since then. What hasn't changed is that recipe videos are as popular as ever. If anything, they're more popular. Watch time of 'new recipes' videos in Canada increased 140% between February 2018 and February 2019. By March 2020, people around the world were watching recipe and cooking videos at a rate of over 45% higher than the same time last year. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed not just how frequently we watch recipe videos, but the sort of recipe video content we seek out. Everyone is cooking and since some ingredients are still scarce, reliable recipe content has never been more important. There are huge opportunities to leverage the current popularity of virtual experiences even post-pandemic, and these three recipe video strategies that have been trending during lockdown are a fantastic way to activate your recipe content.
Recipe videos went live
At various points during lockdown, it seemed like everyone was doing the same thing. Between Zoom quizzes, sourdough baking and family Tik Tok dances, we moved from activity to activity as one. There was also a period where it seemed like everyone was going live on Instagram and food content was no exception. This was born of necessity in many cases, with restaurants closed and chefs looking for new outlets for their creativity and opportunities to stay connected with their communities and potentially drive new revenue streams. As lockdown progressed, Instagram Live made way for live-streamed cooking classes and bake-alongs. This appealed not just to people's interest in recipe content, but to their desire to relieve lockdown boredom. Location dependent, our options for out-of-home entertainment might be slowly on the increase, but lockdown has planted a virtual experiences seed and opportunities to combine live video with recipe content are not going anywhere soon. Weis Markets have already announced that their successful online cooking classes will continue in August. Creativity and creating a genuinely valuable, informative and entertaining experience are key to success here.
Recipe videos become more personality-driven
You only have to look at the success of recipe videos from the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen (at least until recent controversies caused their YouTube channel to grind to a halt) to understand why personality-driven recipe videos can form a powerful part of your marketing strategy. While well-known faces will always draw a crowd, it's important to look within your company to uncover any potential hidden talents that might resonate with your audience. Lockdown has accelerated this employee-as-influencer phenomenon, particularly in the food space. Hotel Chocolat, for example, put some of their chocolatiers front and centre on their Instagram page to talk customers through a variety of chocolate-based recipes. This sort of video strategy gives consumers a glimpse into their favourite food brand and helps build more personal relationships as viewers get to know the faces behind the brand. It also lends a sense of authenticity to both the brand and the recipe content.
Long-form recipe videos took off
The breakout trend of the past few months has undoubtedly been sourdough. At first glance, it's an intimidating process with multiple steps over a couple of days. Unsurprisingly, people turned to video to help them successfully navigate the process, as this data from Google illustrates:
YouTube's average daily views of videos related to sourdough leaped more than 400% between March 15 and the end of May compared with the two-and-a-half month period that preceded it.
Recipes that rely on specific or tricky techniques benefit from being turned into in-depth video content. Short, thumb-stopping time-lapse videos might result in millions of views, but long-form recipe videos attract more engaged viewers, building brand awareness and positioning a brand as a reliable source of educational and entertaining cooking content. Not every recipe is suited to long-form video. People are unlikely to seek out an in-depth video into mac 'n' cheese, for example. But recipes that involve particular chopping techniques or more specialist recipe categories such as barbecue or bread baking are ideally suited to long-form video.
What lockdown has taught us is that the best time to be more creative with your recipe video content is now. Consumers have never been more engaged with online recipe content and over the past few months have become accustomed to a more broad variety of recipe video styles. Time-lapse recipe videos still have their place as part of your food marketing strategy, but the sort of video creativity displayed by food brands throughout lockdown has the potential to build deeper relationships with a more engaged audience.
Video is not the only way you can activate your recipe content and add value for your customers. Our shoppable recipe content is an end-to-end solution that combines tried-and-tested recipe content with deep transactional insights that enable data-driven recipe content curation. Find out about our shoppable recipes solution here.
