🚨 Wonder Acquires Tastemade, Bringing Together Content and Commerce
I read the news about food delivery app Wonder buying food media brand Tastemade and had a flashback.
Back in 2015 when I worked at Facebook, Tastemade was the golden child of social video. We used to tell brands that Tastemade was created the most watched videos on the platform. Why? Because they were the masters of capturing attention.
Their video format was to start with the completed dish and work backwards. That structure created the instant hook because you’d get sucked in within the first three seconds and find yourself sticking around to watch the full video. This content was built to capture attention and drive retention.
As the years went by, I stopped hearing about Tastemade and assumed that they faded into obscurity…until now.
Wonder is buying Tastemade for $90 Million, which is quite a markdown from the $131 Million that Tastemade previously raised in investment. They’re not exactly a distressed asset, but they’re definitely had ups and downs since their prime in the 2010s.
But they still have a decent audience, 160 Million followers across social platforms, and it’s usually easier to buy an audience rather than build a new one from scratch.
Wonder is building a “food super app” and Tastemade’s food and lifestyle content fits into that strategy of building a vertically integrated content-commerce ecosystem. Wonder is in the highly competitive food category, where they especially need to drive consideration against well capitalized rivals DoorDash and UberEats.
Content is the best way to bring potential customers through a marketing funnel that leads to conversion and continues with ongoing retention. Tastemade enables Wonder to build an ecosystem of storytelling that’s a unique customer acquisition angle vs. their rivals.
We’ve seen this with First We Feast, the parent company of Hot Ones. They make a YouTube interview show that makes millions of dollars a year from selling their own hot sauce products.
When you think about it, how many other truly vertically integrated media-commerce brands exist in the food space? Wonder may have just become the biggest.
It’s the same approach with creators like Mr. Beast and Logan Paul, who leverage their own media/content businesses to sell their own CPG brands.
Creators own the full stack = production, distribution, commerce.
And now Wonder wants to replicate this model because they know that creators have shown us all that content IS commerce. And we’re helping brands do the same at PWR House.
