Food Network Canada is launching a new multiplatform venture built around a four-part “docu-series” and a content-rich online hub.
In development for the past nine months, Great Canadian Cookbook is one of the channel’s most ambitious undertakings, said Christine Shipton, senior vice-president of content for Food Network parent Shaw Media.
Lynn Crawford
Debuting this spring, the project will follow Food Network Canada personalities Lynn Crawford (Chopped Canada) and Noah Cappe (Carnival Eats) as they travel across the country, interacting with “food lovers and makers.”
The goal is to reinforce Food Network Canada’s status as Canada’s food authority, said Shipton. “One of the primary strategies when we started this whole conversation was to not just promote the Food Network brand in Canada, but take it to a whole new level in terms of how important it can be to Canadians and clients,” she said.
The TV component will be preceded by an interactive web site containing videos profiling notable Canadian chefs, as well as some iconic Canadian foods. It will also feature user-generated recipes and a series of how-to videos, said Shipton. “We know that it’s one thing for people to read and talk about recipes, but they just love the visuals of the how-tos,” she said.
Noah Cappe
Shaw Media’s Marketing Ventures sales group has been in discussions with advertisers for the past four or five months. The fluid nature of the web component has added to the complexity of those discussions, said Shipton.
“We have a lot [of clients] interested, that’s not the issue,” she said. “It’s really the conversation about what are their needs for their target audiences, for their philosophies behind their brand and how can we adapt what we’re creating to fit those clients.”
She said that possible advertising components would include brand integration in instructional videos, along with gamification, contesting and sponsorship of various content components. “There’s a lot of fluidity there,” she said.
Food Network’s primary audience is women 25-54, but Shipton said the project is also designed to appeal to its sizeable male audience.
She said the launch of Big Brother Canada’s web site two years ago provided some valuable insight into how to engage people and use different types of content to keep them on the web site, information it has already applied to the upcoming History series Dino Hunt Canada. “You need different things at all times for people to navigate through,” she said.
