How Tasty's Addictive Cooking Videos Helped BuzzFeed Build a Food Empire

Alvin Zhou is not your typical video producer. On a recent fall afternoon, he's hovering over a table in a test kitchen cutting and prepping vegetables and meat that he'll later whip into an ersatz "fried rice" dish made with cauliflower. As I watch, I'm offered a hot chocolate chip cookie topped with sea salt straight out of the oven. A camera hangs above Zhou's workspace to film each step of the cooking process, creating a video that, after editing cuts, employs a minute's worth of fast-paced, simple shots of his hands. He's carefully going through the recipe steps to help people recreate the dish at home. No, this isn't the test kitchen of Bon Appétit, Food & Wine or any other high-end foodie title. This is the New York office of BuzzFeed—the viral digital publisher founded 10 years ago by new-media whiz Jonah Peretti, credited with creating the internet's most addictive content. Data inform Zhou's programming choices. As an example, recipes that swap vegetables for starches—like the aforementioned fried cauliflower instead of fried rice—have soared in views in recent months, which explains today's shoot. And the video includes four variations on the dish, with chicken, pork, beef and vegetarian versions. The diverse offerings are meant to encourage people to share the clip with their friends and family. "Every single video that comes out, I look at it, I analyze it, and over time, I'm able to get a sense of what numbers I'm looking for or what number signals a... Continue reading at 'AdWeek'

[ AdWeek | 2016-10-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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