The delicious. brand already covers print, digital, social and events, but editor-in-chief Kerrie McCallum says she’s just getting started.
Please note: this article was contributed by Magazine Networks.
If you’re looking for evidence magazines are brands that extend well beyond their print incarnations, look no further than delicious. Headed up by McCallum, delicious. spans both monthly and weekly print products, a high-traffic website, social media and live events.
McCallum oversees the brand in all its forms, and says it’s important to have an overarching vision and an understanding of how that translates across platforms.
“We’re only just at the beginning of where the brand can go,” she says.
“The platforms and businesses that we’re building out by via the magazine and what it stands for are incredibly exciting. We’re taking our brands well beyond the printed page.”
Key to this is fostering a brand that readers trust in a world where distrust is rife.
Since McCallum took the reins, she launched delicious.com.au and turned the brand’s focus to video content. Part of this push is ‘studio delicious.’, a Facebook video series created for an online audience hungry for visual content.
But video reaches beyond Facebook for the brand with a dedicated studio in the delicious. editorial offices and a Monday to Friday programming schedule which includes live Q&A sessions and polls.
The live Friday afternoon segment, Barfly, has proved especially popular. Barfly sees the delicious. team visit Australian bars to chat with bartenders and learn cocktail recipes. The videos have connected with online audiences increasing from 480,000 views in December to five million views in March. Live streaming has also proven to be a hit.
“It’s amazing what you can do with an iPhone,” McCallum says.
Additionally, video is opening up revenue opportunities for the brand, but McCallum insists this is secondary.
“If something is engaging editorially to start with, then it lends itself well to sponsors,” she says. “But It must be engaging to start with.”
Consumer engagement in a fast-paced industry
McCallum believes there is an opportunity for consumer engagement to take delicious. in new directions as the brand looks to give its readers a voice and encourage the sharing of information on its various platforms.
One such example that taps into the brand’s engaged community is delicious. 100, which McCallum calls, “the most usable guide for people eating out”.
Launched in 2016, delicious. 100 is a comprehensive list of the best places to dine in Melbourne and Sydney with Brisbane soon to get its own list.
It runs through the Sunday mastheads of News Corp’s titles tapping into the power newspapers and the prestige of the delicious. brand. More than 60,000 people voiced their opinion on the list this year with a People’s Choice and Expert Top 100 compiled for each city.
Working across so many facets of the business has been a gradual shift for McCallum, whose career in magazines began pre-internet – and the pace just gets faster.
McCallum says her role evolves as the industry evolves, and the requirements of her job are doubling by the minute.
“My colleagues and I just laugh; we used to think we were so busy. When we began, we were just editing a monthly print magazine,” she says.
Still, McCallum is excited by the pace and the changing nature of the business.
“You have to embrace change and be open to learning all the time,” she says. “Platforms change, the way advertisers sell and buy changes.”
Calling on some recognisable faces
While the delicious. brand is moving with the times, it is also backed by an established history in the food space. In fact, delicious. was one of the first brands to champion the celebrity chef more than 16 years ago, paving the way for today’s foodie influencers.
Many of the famous faces who began with delicious. are still part of the brand today including Matt Moran, Kylie Kwong and Matt Preston.
“These people are very vocal about the brand,” McCallum says. “They feel like my editors at large.”
McCallum adds, that the delicious. Reader engages with this talent not only through food, but also story.
“They like to know how to make Matt Preston’s meatloaf or where he travelled when he went to San Francisco,” she says.
In addition to these prominent figures of the food industry, McCallum says emerging faces are also being championed.
“We’ve added new people who are very relevant to the brand and audience, and that is critical,” she explains. “Consumers love a different point of view.”
This interaction between the publication, influencers and readers extends to events, McCallum says.
“Consumers can’t get enough of these talents,” she says. “A lot of our events sell out because the readers love to get up close and personal with our contributors.”
While it may seem as if delicious. has the market cornered, McCallum says she only just getting started.
“The monthly print magazine is still critical, still loved and still valued, but so is the way we connect with people socially at our events, online or through books,” she says.
“We’re transcending the idea of only being a monthly print magazine. It’s so much more than that now.”
