Creating Commerce From Content with Talia Halperin of BuzzFeed

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Getting consumers to engage with food content beyond the screen -- and head into the kitchen -- isn’t always simple. In a presentation at NOSH Live Winter 2019 in Santa Monica, Talia Halperin, head of brand management at BuzzFeed, explained how an online experiment became BuzzFeed’s Tasty -- dubbed the “Internet’s favorite kitchen” -- and evolved into a thriving e-commerce business as well.

The idea for Tasty stemmed from consumers’ attraction to visually-stimulating food content, Halperin explained. But the platform’s passionate following was unprecedented, with 39% of Tasty viewers buying brands they see featured in videos. Building on that momentum, Tasty has also released its own diverse set of branded products, from cookware to ice cream and wine, as well as created brand partnerships and, most recently, launched its own online grocery service. The goal is a “frictionless experience,” Halperin said.

Creating engaging content can help food brands develop a deeper connection to consumers, Halpern shared. By eyeing specific life experiences like date night and owning your first apartment, Tasty was able to leverage consumers’ natural emotional connections to such occasions, growing organically via real, relatable content that those consumers naturally wanted to share with friends and family.

“There’s an action that comes from that emotional reaction,” Halperin said.