taste.com.au turns 20 with Christmas app push

taste.com.au has launched a national Christmas campaign to drive use of its free recipe app, targeting home cooks during the peak festive planning and cooking period.

Marking the food publisher’s 20th year, ‘The Joy of Christmas Starts with Taste’ was created with News Australia’s in-house creative agency Roller. The campaign launches on 16 November across social video, high-impact digital takeovers, display and print.

It will also be amplified across the wider News Australia network, including news.com.au, Escape and Body+Soul.

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An untapped audience for recipe apps

The campaign draws on research from The Growth Distillery, which found 81 per cent of Australian home cooks - around 16.4 million people - are open to using a dedicated recipe app but do not currently use one.

Among that group, 37 per cent feel overwhelmed by meal planning and 28 per cent are frustrated by meal repetition. The research surveyed 3,052 Australian home cooks aged 18 and over in July 2026.

taste.com.au is positioning its app as a tool that takes users from recipe discovery through to cooking, with personalised recommendations, festive recipe collections, guided Cook Mode and its AI recipe assistant, TasteBud.

Turning festive inspiration into app use

taste.com.au content director Laura Simpson said the campaign links the brand’s established Christmas offering with practical kitchen support.

“For 20 years, Australians have turned to the Taste website for trusted festive inspiration, with our dedicated Christmas hub offering more than 5,000 entertaining ideas. By pairing that scale with a free, easy-to-use app, the campaign reflects how people really cook over the holidays, taking the stress out of moving from planning to cooking so every host can get dishes on the table with confidence.”

The creative centres on shared festive meals and Christmas cooking moments, targeting everyone from first-time hosts to experienced entertainers.

The campaign follows a substantial Christmas audience in 2025. According to Ipsos iris, taste.com.au reached 5.19 million people in December, generating 105 million browser page views and an average of 20 browser page views per person.

Those figures measured audiences aged 14 and over; Ipsos iris moved to an 18-plus audience base in July 2026.

This year’s push puts the app at the centre of taste’s Christmas offering, using its seasonal content and News Australia’s distribution network to encourage uptake.