If Tasty’s 70 million likes on Facebook are to be believed, people love food and curated food content. Tastemade’s 19.9 million is nothing to shake a pair of chopsticks at, but they’re adding a unique experience to their repertoire that may give them a bit of a boost: Virtual reality. On their Facebook page you can find videos for recipes such as Rainbow Cake and the secret to the perfect french fry, but new videos will possibly have a 360-degree quirk to them.
Produced in collaboration with Jaunt, who just named their new CEO, A Perfect Day in Los Angeles is a video featuring Ryan Seacrest, Conan O’Brien, Andy Richter, and Tastemade crew like Julie Nolke and Katie Quinn. The video takes us on a tour that features the Jaws ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, a film set with clones of filmmaker Jimmy Wong, and a magical scene of donuts. The video is currently hosted on Jaunt and can be viewed on their VR app. It will also soon be distributed, in 360-degree format, across Tastemade’s Facebook and YouTube.
While the video does feature food in parts, it’s clearly not the focus. Tastemade has built itself on the back of food recipes, but they have much more to offer. Head of sales and brand partnerships Melissa Drucker says the “taste” in Tastemade carries more meaning than most assume:
“We started off with food, no doubt, but the whole idea of Tastemade was never meant to be food only — it’s always been about having great taste in anything you do whether that’s food, travel or health and fitness.”
Travel has been a comfortable side-dish to Tastemade’s coverage as it has grown, but the team hopes their track record will help to pitch VR to advertisers as they further expand their topics.
