Content Marketing Case Study: Fisher and Paykel – Our Kitchen

Today I thought I would explore a little arm of the online presence of one of New Zealand’s iconic brand names.

Our Kitchen is a recipe blog with a great about us intro:

Our Kitchen was born from the passion of food, from a group of friends here at Fisher and Paykel. Like any good recipe it’s passed on through friends and family. Originally we shared recipes on scraps of paper, photocopies of Mum’s favourite dish or something that the flat tried last night. We started to compile and photograph our favourite creations to share. We’ve tested them on friends, family, and workmates, in fact anyone that has a hunger to fill. Only the best are here for you to enjoy.

The blog ourkitchen.fisherpaykel.com has a lovely minimalist, easy-to-read design and the large font and white space are appealing. There’s playful descriptions of all the authors and they even have guest posts from colleagues, and fans.
Adam provides the mouth-watering “food porn” images with artistic finesse. But it is not just pretty. There’s reasons it appeals to me as a digital strategist, not just as a hungry bloke. There are lessons for others too.

1. Like all good content it is REGULAR. A post every two or three days consistently for over two years (I didn’t go all the way back in their feed).
2. It’s proof read but has a HUMAN voice. There’s talk of the new mums and recipes that mother in laws claim are better than their own.  It is engaging.
3. It’s well TAGGED, the content is segregated into relevant categories and author if you like their style, which is great.
4. Thought has gone into TEMPLATES. the content is chunked well and breaks into intro, ingredients and instructions. The later two forming a convenient print this page.
5. It’s PROFESSIONAL. The images are by someone who knows how to shoot food and the site is fast and well designed. There’s no hint that they see this as “social media – the free option”.
6. It’s CONNECTED and CURATED, the articles are shared to their Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest accounts on a regular basis where engagement continues.
7. They SEGMENT their messaging to Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.
8. It ADDRESSES CLIENT NEEDS, it is relatively niche given the wired variety of Fisher & Paykel appliances, but for those wanting to put their new convection range or fan grill to the test it is a great source of inspiration. And as mentioned it is categorised.
9. It’s LIGHT SELL, HEAVY INFO, I saw one mention of a product in an introduction to a recipe and you’ll note there are no ads. Clients come first.
10. It has COMMENTS functionality – gives the chance for users to respond. Be they hunting TOFU… or for that matter sit MOFU or BOFU in the sales funnel they can get answers. Comments also give Fisher and Paykel the potential to interact and learn from ‘Small Data’, which interests me as much as trendy Big Data.

There’s a couple of niggles: no mobile version; light deep and cross linking to the main site; and the Pinterest and Twitter buttons could be better customised.

Overall it’s a great blog and has great potential. What excites me the most and why I see future potential for the blog is:

• There’s a blog production process in place and there must be an editorial calendar.
• The commitment to regular, fresh, professional and engaging content.
• There’s scope to do better in mobile and tablet.
• It is driven by people who like what they do, so creating content is far less of a chore.

Oh the places we could take this…

Guys what else would you add?