Video recipes: marketing for the food industry

The food industry can be considered one of the most competitive in the world, which makes the importance of marketing and video recipes fundamental. The reality is that food is the sector used as a textbook example to explain what economists call perfect competition. It's a sector defined by low barriers to entry and a greater difficulty in protecting products and making them exclusive.

That's why differentiation strategies are important, whether through marketing like food video recipes, exclusive products, or other intellectual property strategies. And in this series of articles, we'll look at video recipes.

Food in the digital marketing era

As this market has adapted to modern trends and communication, food marketing has taken a considerable turn.

Food is one of the easiest sectors for creating communication and marketing content, and that, again, makes it very hard to stand out. Food on the internet has always been eye-catching and performed well, as long as the content is interesting and appetizing. The term "foodporn" comes from this, as does the more recent "foodie" who shares their meals.

Companies have started creating marketing content with the goal of differentiating their food product from the rest. This is achieved by offering recipes, fun facts, or reasons why one product is better than another, so that when people go looking for it, they buy yours and not a competitor's.

Video recipes, food marketing

The strategy of video recipes for marketing

The brief is simple: create a recipe using one of your products, making it essential for cooking these exclusive dishes. You give the consumer a special, original recipe while at the same time positioning your product as the most suitable one for making it.

This is what we'd define in content strategy as "hub content" or base content: generic, universal resources of a sector. In the world of video games, it would simply be playing the game (what's known as a gameplay).

Another example, in the world of mechanics, would be explaining components and how they affect the car. It's generic, "core" content for the company, designed to last over time and fundamental to the sector.

Making your video recipes stand out from the rest

As usually happens in marketing, it first appears in the books, then a few people try it, and finally everyone exploits and squeezes it dry, ending in a "dilution" of its effectiveness and overproduction. With video recipes, this is starting to happen. The number of companies that are beginning to produce these videos is large.

So the strategy pivots, or "shifts," toward either greater volume or greater differentiation. In other words, we start by making the recipes, and because there's so much competition within that space, it becomes a game theory exercise with new strategies.

Where, once again, you have to differentiate: by making exclusive recipes (for example, with notable chefs) or by producing a very high volume of content, which helps people find us through several possible search paths.

How to make video recipes

A video recipe is a "video of a recipe." It can be made with a regular audiovisual production. In other words, filming a video of someone cooking. There are companies that do this work, or it can be done in-house in a kitchen.

The steps for making a video recipe are simple. Like any production, there are three main ones.

1. Pre-production of the video recipe

This is the planning period, where several points are defined.

• Creative aspects: sketches or ideas for the shots.
• Technical aspects: the types of cameras and accessories needed.
• Staffing aspects: planning the crew (chef and camera operators).

Goal: Be clear about what is going to be filmed and how.

2. Production of the video recipe

This is the filming stage, carried out according to the work plan previously defined in pre-production. Capturing images and video in the planned kitchen.

Goal: Have the footage recorded and stored correctly.

Post-production of the video recipe

In this stage you select the recorded material, assemble it, edit it, add subtitles, and so on. It's also exported and delivered. It's usually done in the following order:

• Assembly: import the raw footage and roughly organize it.
• Rough cut: an initial, high-level edit.
• Deep editing: once it's clear, finish the editing details.
• Overlays, sound mixing, and color correction: among other things, this is done right at the end, to avoid doing work that won't be kept later.

Goal: Finish the video.