Tag Archives: BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed’s Tasty cookware launches in the UK

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BuzzFeed’s food network Tasty launches its popular cookware and kitchenware in the UK this week.

The line of kitchen products aims to bring the fun, ease and accessibility of Tasty’s signature recipe videos to consumers across the UK. The Tasty-branded cookware line includes 115 products, from non-stick cookware to high quality kitchen utensils, accessories and more. Prices range from £2.99 to £99.99 for the full pink set.

Hanna Sheinin, Head of International Licensing at BuzzFeed Inc, says: “Tasty has always made cooking more fun, and there is no better way to prepare delicious recipes at home than with our bright cookware range. We’re extremely proud to bring these products to the UK for a broad audience of beginner and more experienced cooks to enjoy.”

The Tasty cookware line features bright colours that pop in the kitchen, and includes all the tools necessary to prepare Tasty’s iconic recipes. The line includes non-stick aluminium cookware, non-stick metal bakeware, extra large cookie cutters, silicone-head utensils and soft-grip gadgets. The Tasty Kitchen line is used in Tasty videos and was designed and developed with the Tasty fan in mind, as BuzzFeed research shows that two out of three Tasty fans have made a Tasty recipe.

The collection will be available for purchase through the Tasty brand store on Amazon.

 

Stellar Partners teams with BuzzFeed to develop branded stores in U.S. airports

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Leading U.S. airport retailer Stellar Partners, Inc. and digital media company BuzzFeed have entered into an exclusive agreement to bring premium news convenience stores to airports across the United States. The partnership will tap into BuzzFeed’s consumer insights to elevate the merchandise strategy. 

The first two BuzzFeed stores will open in the spring of 2022 in LaGuardia Airport’s newly built Terminal C.

“We are incredibly proud of this collaboration to develop exciting retail stores that bring the power of BuzzFeed news and entertainment to airports nationwide,” says Stellar CEO Padraig Drennan. “Stellar’s retail expertise combined with BuzzFeed’s trendsetting appeal will help redefine newsstands and convenience for the modern traveller.”

“We are thrilled to build a long-term partnership with Stellar and extend the BuzzFeed brand to airports across the country,” adds BuzzFeed’s SVP of Consumer Products, Melanie Summers. “We’ll utilise our data-driven research and insights to give consumers a curated travel experience with the products they want most.”

Travelers at LGA will be able to quickly grab travel supplies, snacks, magazines, beauty and lifestyle items, and more while speeding through self-checkout. While travelers are browsing, they will be able to see the latest news and entertainment provided by BuzzFeed on monitors throughout the store. Stores will also support local businesses and carry products for purchase that will vary by region.

The new LGA news convenience stores and partnership with BuzzFeed represent Stellar’s vision to introduce new and exciting concepts to airports. These locations will be the latest in Stellar’s portfolio of news convenience stores across 21 U.S. airports.

Now BuzzFeed moves into family gaming with Buffalo Games partnership

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BuzzFeed has partnered with the games publisher Buffalo Games to release a new line of party games under its new BuzzFeed Games imprint, kicking off with three titles available from Autumn this year.

The initial launch will include BuzzFeed 2000’s Trivia, BuzzFeed Listicles, and BuzzFeed’s Tasty- Cooking Chaos. Each game has been designed and created with input from BuzzFeed editors.

“BuzzFeed is all about driving human connection, and through the BuzzFeed Games imprint, we’ll extend our reach beyond the screen and spread joy IRL to our community through lively game nights,” said BuzzFeed’s SVP of licensing Eric Karp.

“We’re so fortunate to be able to team up with the brilliant folks at Buffalo Games to bring this project to life.”

BuzzFeed 2000’s Trivia is a game designed to ‘test your millennial status’, with over 400 questions with pictures, trivia, and challenges based on the movies, TV, toys, tech, and trends of the 2000’s.

Elsewhere, Listicles is a frantic race to compile a list based on categories like ‘things your rich friend had growing up’ and ‘people you wouldn’t want to be trapped in an elevator with’, while Cooking Chaos is a collaborative kitchen cook-off featuring food recipes from BuzzFeed’s food brand, Tasty, where players race to collect ingredient cards to make dishes.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with BuzzFeed on this line of games,” added Buffalo Games vice president of marketing and product development, Ben Jamesson.

“We are confident that combining BuzzFeed’s unique voice and signature style with our experience creating fun and engaging games will result in a set of games that people will want to play again and again. Working with BuzzFeed will allow us to tap into the hundreds of millions of people that love their content globally and give their massive audience a fun new opportunity to experience and engage with BuzzFeed.”

Listicles will be released exclusively at Target and 2000’s Trivia and Cooking Chaos will be available at major retailers across the US this autumn.

After Tasty, BuzzFeed has its sights on Wellness, DIY, and Travel markets

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In its first full calendar year of sales back in 2018, BuzzFeed’s licensing division totalled $135 million in licensed products. By the end of 2019, it had almost doubled that with $260 million. It’s according the media platform’s SVP of global brand licensing, Eric Karp that the company is now on track to surpass $400 million by the end of 2020.

It’s fair to say, that BuzzFeed has so far made quite the success story out of its move into the licensing arena; but really, things are only just starting to get underway. It’s off the back of the media company’s latest move with Haven Global to take its Tasty culinary brand into the international space that the company details its overarching growth plans to Licensing.biz.

Its plans don’t end with the food and beverage sector. BuzzFeed has its sights firmly on the emerging Wellness market, as well as the already popular DIY space, too.

“Our aim is to build a category-leading global licensed consumer products for our culinary brand Tasty, expand and scale our wellness vertical Goodful, and initiate similar programs with our DIY vertical Nifty and our travel vertical Bring Me,” Karp tells us.

We sit down with BuzzFeed’s global brand licensing SVP to learn more about these plans.

So, BuzzFeed – a game changing name and platform in the media space – what is it you guys are looking to achieve in the licensing sector?

Our licensing division started in August of 2017. The full calendar year of 2018 we sold $135M worth of licensed products, in 2019 we sold $260M, and we are on track to surpass $400M in 2020.

Our aim is to build a category-leading global licensed consumer products for our culinary brand Tasty, expand and scale our wellness vertical Goodful, and initiate similar programs with our DIY vertical Nifty and our travel vertical Bring Me.

How do you begin to position yourself in the licensing and consumer products space – What does BuzzFeed bring to the table here?

Two things. Firstly, our positioning: we are a lifestyle brands publisher 3.0 – our content is distributed across the web, primarily the social webs. Lifestyle brands publishers 1.0 (eg Conde Nast, Hearst) use print magazines as their platform, and broadcast/cable TV could be considered 2.0.

That we distribute our content to communities online gives us the ability to communicate with them dynamically and persistently, and to inform them about our product offerings. This is a huge point of differentiation and a major strength.

Looking at Tasty in particular, what do you think this brand brings to the food and beverage licensing sector? How will you position yourselves within this sector?

We don’t enter a major category or a product subcategory without first getting hard validation from our data science team that Tasty can win in that space, ie, that our audience uses those products and has a high intent to purchase.

We then speak openly with retail buyers and divisional leads about the white spaces and pain points in their modulars and how Tasty (and our manufacturing partners) can be of service to their needs. We will not slap the Tasty name on just any food product; we are designing our program to solve the needs of the retailers and ultimately the shopper.

Why is now the right time to be bringing the Tasty brand into licensing? Likewise the BuzzFeed name itself? How has the evolution of media and content consumption allowed you guys to make this move?

Tasty has the largest engaged audience of any culinary brand worldwide. Having already sold 1M cookbooks and 5 million kitchenware units, we’ve already proven that the timing is right to expand into consumer products.

With the BuzzFeed master brand our aspirations are much more tactical: publishing, gifts, etc, but no cohesive programme with a major retail statement – currently.

What audience, products categories, and of course retailers are you looking at tapping into with your licensing programme?

It’s of critical importance to identify key product categories and retail destination before setting sail.

For a culinary brand like Tasty, the focus is on publishing, housewares and food and beverage. We will consider other categories but not allow ourselves to be distracted. Retail destination is really no surprise – we are looking primarily at the supermarket/hypermarket/grocery channels.

Retail is in a state of evolution right now, how are you guys positioning yourselves within this changing landscape? How can licensing maintain its place within the current retail scene?

Retail is evolving and as many stores falter and fail, others are changing their games and becoming more dynamic, more engaged in e-commerce, and more active in creating the experiential. When regional chains started to supplant mom-and-pops, retail didn’t die, it simply evolved and those who evolved along flourished.

When big box retailers started to supplant the regional chains, the same evolution occurred with those who then flourished. The big names in e-commerce are having a similar effect on current retail and the survivors/winners will be those who adapt.

BuzzFeed intends to be of service to all retailers who intend to evolve!

What’s next for both BuzzFeed and Tasty?

We have three more lifestyle brands beyond Tasty that we are developing for their respective markets: Goodful (mindfulness and wellness) transitioning from department store to major e-commerce platform, Nifty (DIY and home improvement), and Bring Me (travel and experience) coming to market soon.

BuzzFeed’s Tasty brand launches kitchen and cookware ranges through Haven Global deal

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Haven Global has detailed the launch of a new range of cookware and kitchenware inspired by and themed around BuzzFeed’s own popular food brand, Tasty into Big W stores from today.

The line of kitchen products aims to bring the fun, ease and accessibility of Tasty’s signature recipe videos to consumers across Australia. The Tasty-branded cookware line includes 28 products ranging from non-stick cookware and bakeware to kitchen gadgets and accessories.

Matt Drinkwater, head of international at BuzzFeed said: “There is no better way for Tasty fans to prepare delicious recipes at home than with our bright and beautiful cookware range. We’re so proud to partner with Big W to bring the line to a broad audience of beginner and more experienced cooks alike. Together we’re making cooking more fun.”

The Tasty cookware line features bright colours and includes the tools necessary to prepare Tasty’s portfolio of recipes. The line features non-stick forged aluminium cookware, non-stick metal bakeware with silicone handle inserts, emoji cookie cutters, silicone head utensils and soft grip gadgets.

BuzzFeed research shows that two out of three Tasty fans have made a Tasty recipe, using its bank of videos as guidance. The kitchen line is the same range as is used in Tasty’s library of videos and was designed and developed with the Tasty fan in mind.

Tom Punch, managing director of Haven Global, who facilitated the deal, added: “We are delighted we are to be working with BuzzFeed to bring the iconic Tasty brand to the Australian market. This launch reflects the huge shift in how millennials are consuming media along with the brand recognition that online content can offer for consumer products.

“There is so much potential for many more partnerships and categories to come – keep an eye out for this fabulous brand as we further expand into food aisles and more in the coming months.”

The Tasty line of kitchen products is licensed and manufactured by Fackelmann.

CEO of Fackelmann Housewares Australia, Mark Batson, said: “We are thrilled to be the product partner for the launch of Tasty into the Australian market. The new range of millennial focused kitchenware products includes solutions for all stages of meal preparation from knives to bakeware to frying pans.

“All, of course, have been designed to be insta-friendly with bold colours across the range and perfect for recreating the Tasty recipes we see online.”

Tasty reaches over 325 million people globally and can be viewed across social platforms including Facebook, YouTube and TikTok; through Tasty.co and the Tasty app.

The growing Tasty portfolio includes additional brands Proper Tasty, Tasty Demais, Tasty Miam, Einfach Tasty, Tasty Japan, Bien Tasty, Tasty Vegetarian, Tasty Grill, and Tasty Jr.