Home for the holidays means something a little different this year. With folks smartly shying away from grand travel plans and stricter lockdown orders taking effect across the country, turkey time is getting a rethink. That's why Apartment Therapy Media’s food site Kitchn decided to host the inaugural "Thanksgiving Food Fest” on Nov. 14-15 via its Instagram account @thekitchn.
The two-day virtual event featured digestible segments with Kitchn editors, experts from QVC, pro cooks and bakers, and food influencers, all sharing cooking techniques, recipes, and holiday entertaining tips for small Thanksgiving gatherings.
November is Kitchn's most-visited time of the year, with traffic to the site generating 90% more visitors than other months, so it made sense for the site to host a virtual event now. Plus, both Kitchn and Apartment Therapy have seen a growth in traffic as a result of pandemic-induced stay-at-home orders. So far, the Food Fest content has garnered 7.5 million impressions, “which is more than double the goal we set,” explained Lauren Murphy, vice president of brand innovation and strategy at Apartment Therapy Media. Plus, there were over 900,000 IGTV video views and more than 30,000 IG Live views over the course of the weekend event.
“Ultimately, people really need to capture a fresh sense of energy for holiday cooking, especially with smaller gatherings the norm this year. Our live and interactive virtual event was a way to create excitement and warmth while also teaching skills to people who perhaps feel a lack of confidence in cooking all on their own, without their parents or extended family to guide them,” explained Kitchn’s editor-in-chief Faith Durand.
She added that the media company chose to host the virtual event via Instagram because “people have screen/Zoom burnout. We wanted to put an event where they are on the weekends, not where they are on a workday. On their phones, we gave them bite-sized, social-friendly segments, so that they could engage with us wherever they were.”
Apartment Therapy utilized the same type of strategy for its “Small/Cool Experience At Home” virtual event, which was held back in May. For that event, social media metrics helped guide the programming lineup. “Instagram gives a similar sense of both ‘live’ and interactivity as a true live event, with the ability to talk back and ask questions just like at an in-person cooking demo or a big food festival IRL. But it also offers the shareability of social media, so the best of all worlds,” Durand said.
And the brand’s embrace of digital gatherings has paid off. Virtual events will account for seven-digit revenue numbers for Apartment Therapy in 2020, compared to 0% percent in 2019. Plus, so far in 2020, virtual events account for 5% of Apartment Therapy’s direct advertising revenue. In 2019, that number was zero.
It’s a knack for bringing in the dough from advertisers and sponsors that has made the media company’s virtual events a success. For example, Kitchn’s “Thanksgiving Food Fest” was an extension of the brand’s existing partnership with QVC. The e-retailer was “looking for big ideas that would separate their products, value, and brand from the rest. We tailored their Thanksgiving Food Fest integration with custom video content that incorporated QVC talent and exclusivity of the e-tailer category,” Murphy explained.
Viewers were able to learn how to design a seasonal tabletop in less than 10 minutes using items from QVC including table linens, dinnerware, flatware, glassware, candleholders, and more with help from QVC on-air host Alberti Popaj, and create a Thanksgiving dinner in one pot with QVC’s David Venable. Both sessions were presented as IGTV segments.
Plus, viewers could play a QVC-branded installment of “This or That” with a series of choices between Thanksgiving-related products such as a Dutch oven vs. cast iron skillet, table runner vs. placemats, or pie dish vs. cake stand. Followers were prompted to screengrab the frame and post their own selections, as well as swipe up to shop Thanksgiving must-haves from QVC.
Other partners included Instant Pot and Pyrex, which were showcased during a “Thanksgiving Cooking School” segment that concluded with the plating of the dishes on assorted Corelle plates and platters, another event partner. Cheeses of Europe was highlighted in two different cheese board segments, while financial payment company Affirm and Libby’s Pumpkin each had dedicated interactive games.
Although Apartment Therapy doesn’t have any more virtual events slated for 2020, Murphy said that Kitchn’s Thanksgiving Food Fest and Apartment Therapy’s Small/Cool Experience will be back next year, along with other virtual offerings.
“We really wanted to bring a unique experience to both our on-site readers and Instagram audience to not only inspire our audience, but also give them a chance to interact with us directly, ask questions, and hear direct answers in real time,” Durand said. “It’s such a great opportunity to speak directly with our audience and make them feel like they’re on a FaceTime with us in an intimate setting with millions of users.”
