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Video content is becoming an increasingly attractive option for brands wanting to connect with consumers. Pasta brand Barilla is the latest to use it. As part of its drive to target millennials, the brand has partnered with social influencer Hannah Hart to create a video series called While the Water Boils. Hart is the creator of My Drunken Kitchen, a YouTube series which features her cooking while drinking alcoholic beverages. My Drunken Kitchen, which launched five years ago on YouTube and is watched primarily by millennials, currently boasts more than 2.4m viewers.
The Barilla-sponsored mobile series While the Water Boils plays on the theme of cooking pasta and features interviews with celebrity guests who talk about their respective passions and how they became successful. Each interview is just five minutes long – about the same amount of time it takes water to boil. The series is featured on YouTube as well as Barilla’s digital platforms and PassionForPasta.com.
Each season consists of three episodes. To date the celebrities featured have been celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe, science educator Bill Nye and artist Hebru Brantley. Each video concludes with the celebrity guest eating pasta with Hart, with links to recipes for each dish.
According to Barilla’s Melissa Tendick, mobile was the core of the idea as a result of the growing amount of Web video being consumed on mobile, combined with the fact that the brand is targeting millennials, who are often content creators themselves. “We wanted to make sure that the videos are optimised for mobile, are easy to share and support multiple formats across a variety of content platforms,” she says. “In order to appeal to the distracted consumer of today we’ve taken a branded experience using a non-advertising strategy.”
The video series is part of a campaign to make pasta popular again now that carb-free diets are trendy.
Tendick says Barilla’s passion for pasta complemented Hart’s passion for food and friends. “Pasta and passion go together,” she says, adding that the Web series aims to inspire millennials to pursue their passions in whatever time they have. She says the celebrity guests were chosen for their inspirational value.
The big take-out: Barilla is the latest brand to use video content in a new Web series called While the Water Boils, which has been created in partnership with social influencer Hannah Hart.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Barilla targets millennials via mobile videos
Video content is becoming an increasingly attractive option for brands wanting to connect with consumers. Pasta brand Barilla is the latest to use it. As part of its drive to target millennials, the brand has partnered with social influencer Hannah Hart to create a video series called While the Water Boils. Hart is the creator of My Drunken Kitchen, a YouTube series which features her cooking while drinking alcoholic beverages. My Drunken Kitchen, which launched five years ago on YouTube and is watched primarily by millennials, currently boasts more than 2.4m viewers.
The Barilla-sponsored mobile series While the Water Boils plays on the theme of cooking pasta and features interviews with celebrity guests who talk about their respective passions and how they became successful. Each interview is just five minutes long – about the same amount of time it takes water to boil. The series is featured on YouTube as well as Barilla’s digital platforms and PassionForPasta.com.
Each season consists of three episodes. To date the celebrities featured have been celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe, science educator Bill Nye and artist Hebru Brantley. Each video concludes with the celebrity guest eating pasta with Hart, with links to recipes for each dish.
According to Barilla’s Melissa Tendick, mobile was the core of the idea as a result of the growing amount of Web video being consumed on mobile, combined with the fact that the brand is targeting millennials, who are often content creators themselves. “We wanted to make sure that the videos are optimised for mobile, are easy to share and support multiple formats across a variety of content platforms,” she says. “In order to appeal to the distracted consumer of today we’ve taken a branded experience using a non-advertising strategy.”
The video series is part of a campaign to make pasta popular again now that carb-free diets are trendy.
Tendick says Barilla’s passion for pasta complemented Hart’s passion for food and friends. “Pasta and passion go together,” she says, adding that the Web series aims to inspire millennials to pursue their passions in whatever time they have. She says the celebrity guests were chosen for their inspirational value.
The big take-out: Barilla is the latest brand to use video content in a new Web series called While the Water Boils, which has been created in partnership with social influencer Hannah Hart.
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Published by Arena Holdings and distributed with the Financial Mail on the last Thursday of every month except December and January.