Taste.com.au has officially launched Taste Test Kitchen, a place that gives consumers everything they need to know about the latest kitchen appliances and gadgets.
The new platform features reviews, videos, how-to content, and recipes that make the most of different appliances. With consumers able to shop directly from the content on pages and videos, the platform isn’t just just good news for consumers, it’s good news for brands.
Mediaweek spoke to taste.com.au editor-in-chief Brodee Myers-Cooke about the launch and what makes Taste Test Kitchen a “high value” addition to the News Corp portfolio.
The Taste Test Kitchen didn’t appear in a vacuum, with Myers-Cooke pointing out that taste.com.au has been reviewing appliances since before the pie maker became the must-have item.
“We’ve been dabbling in the appliance space for about four years. We did realise quite a long time ago that there was all this content behind the curtain. We noticed that what we were sitting on, and not revealing, was all of our food people’s expertise.
“There was always content in the background that was about how we test things, and why things end up where they end up. We thought we should bring that to life a bit.”
With the groundwork being laid over the last few years, there was one major turning point that saw The Taste Test Kitchen brought to life.
“The real clincher came for us when we were moving into e-commerce and having a few trials, we did a few plays on news.com.au – whose content was going great despite having no topic authority and no expertise. The e-comm team just said ‘your topic authority is incredible. For air fryers, you’re right up there at number one’. So everything came together.
“All that work we’ve done in the background set this up really nicely. It was just sitting there ready for us to step into, and play the part that Australians are already using us to play.”
As part of the launch, taste.com.au will also launch The Kitchen Appliance Cookbook, published by HarperCollins. Set to be on shelves in May 2023, it promises to be an incredibly extensive cookbook of recipes utilising favourite kitchen appliances.
“I got my first copy the other day and I actually almost cried because it’s so beautiful,” says Myers-Cooke. “It’s got a super thick cover, beautiful stock, a gorgeous cover. It really is the ultimate go to.
“HarperCollins says there’s nothing like it globally that helps people like push the envelope – people not only want us to push the envelope, they want us to see how far the envelope goes. Especially when we say things like, ‘can you air fry a Mars Bar?’ or ‘can you make a Mars Bar pancake in a sausage roll maker?’”
Seeing just how far the team can take new recipes has also led to the biggest-ever social video on taste.com.au.
“We’ve got one called Air Fryer Crumpet Garlic Bread, and it’s had – can you believe it? – 11 million social video views,” says Myers-Cooke. “It would be probably 11.2 million by now, because every time I look, it’s gone up by another hundred thousand. People just love video for this content, which is why on our new vertical we’ve got this fantastic new vertical video player, so it’s mobile friendly.
“It’s part of the reason why we’re going to be hitting 260 million social video views this year on taste, which is phenomenal. It wasn’t that long ago we were celebrating getting 7 million a month.”
For brands and advertisers, Myers-Cooke says that The Taste Test Kitchen offers opportunities in every stage of the funnel, allowing brands to be completely integrated into the taste content.
“A lot of our clients are really keen on this because it gives them a huge exposure quickly, and puts them on the consideration list at a time when that’s really important. A lot of people are switching and ditching brands. The magic is that whenever we put a brand within the video, it always goes better because people see its convenience and value.
“In some ways, I feel that this is the highest value content that we’ve ever done as a vertical. When I say highest value, I think these are high-ticket items.
“We’re really happy to be serving our audiences in a new and extremely practical way, to help them save money at a time where people can’t really afford to waste a cent.”
See Also: Brodee Myers-Cooke: What the 2023 News Corp Food Trends Forecast tells us about the future of food