What do the ratings for Recipe To Riches tell us about the state of branded entertainment?
As I write, I suspect that the blamestorming on Recipe To Riches will be getting under way.
The Woolworths-backed reality contest had a disappointing debut last week, and fell out of the top 20 last night.
In retrospect, it’s too easy to say that it was obvious the public wouldn’t take to the show, which is based on a Canadian format.
The story though, is slightly more complex than that. Not least because it’s one of the biggest and bravest pieces of brand funded entertainment Australia has seen to date. It’s failure – if that’s what it proves to be – is a shame because it will make it harder to commission a similar piece next time round.
A few days before the first episode aired, I watched a preview. And I enjoyed it, albeit through the lens of somebody interested in the world of marketing, and indeed brand-funded content.
In technical terms, it was tightly crafted according to the rules of reality TV. There were golden tickets, sick relatives, Gordon Ramsay style chef voiceovers, arbitary cooking deadlines, public taste tests, and swelling music. Formulaically, it was a three-in-a-bed between Masterchef, The Apprentice and The X Factor.
And of course with the twist that the winning product ends up on Woolworths’ shelves the next day.
But making TV is hard, and those of us outside the programming elite often have no idea about how something will do. Prior to it airing, I honestly had no idea whether it would be hit or miss in the ratings. It was only while I watched on Twitter, that its fate began to emerge.
But despite the poorish ratings for the first week, I think the show did shift some product. I made a point of going into my local Woolworths last Tuesday night. Concetta’s Croqs were prominently displayed in the freezer aisle, and it looked like a fair few had been picked up.
Now clearly, moving a single product on the back of an hour long show is not efficient. So the (as yet unanswered) question is: did the show increase footfall through the store?
Last night’s performance was poor enough that Ten’s programmers might be asking themselves whether the show can justify its place in the prime 7.30pm timeslot. But with a hefty commitment to major advertiser Woolworths, shifting it would be a big call.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I didn’t catch the first episode, but I did buy the Croquettes, which were quite nice (though not very healthy!)
I also watched last night’s episode. It was mildly entertaining, and putting it on at 7.30 (Masterchef’s old timeslot) was a good move. The problem was that Masterchef didn’t rate highly either – 7.30 on Ch 10 isn’t prime real estate like it used to be.
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leaving this rubbish on air would be the big call. viewers these days are very savvy and obviously don’t want to be subjected to a 42 minute advertorial for woolworths, broken up by 18 minutes of commercials. channel 10 fail. fremantle media fail. woolworths fail. audience showing their distrust of overtly branded content, win.
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it looks symptomatic of a brand that is not sympathetic to the golden rule of branded entertainment. Entertain first and put the brand second. It should be reversed and called ‘Entertainment branded’
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Is it really that entertaining to watch people talk about making money out of cooking in a domestic environment – right after someone in the household has just had to slave away for free ? I think the issue is also transitional in that it is very obviously advertorial and we do expect some kind of respite from advertising and marketing during programming, unless it is so cleverly woven into the entertainment that we don’t notice the obvious pitch for our pocket.
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There is no guaranteed formula for tv success, not every non branded show works either, (see Channel 7’s version of Dragon’s Den, for a top format that didn’t rate over here).
I thought R2R was a good effort and if given a second series could iron out the wrinkles, simplify it’s format and be a rating show. It felt to me like it needed less agency creative input and more tv producer input.
Good on Woolies for giving it a go, I hope they don’t abandon branded entertainment after just one go like Toohey’s did with 6 Beers. The rewards to cracking this nut will be big.
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Recipe looks like it would produce spiked sales, requiring a new product on shelf every week. After not too long, this would be exhausting for the loyal viewer/consumer. Seems to me the best embedded branding is the stuff you don’t notice straight away.
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This will win a tonne of awards. Just you watch. D5 will go to town on it.
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I think the focus here should be on this line from the article:
“..one of the biggest and bravest pieces of brand funded entertainment Australia has seen to date”
Good on ’em for giving it a go. It must have been quite difficult to get Woollies and Channel 10 to take such a risk.
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As William Goldman famously said about predicting success in Hollywood, ‘Nobody knows anything’.
It’s irrelevant whether it’s brand funded or not. What matters is whether it’s entertaining.
To the average viewer, this is just Woolworths take on the Coles and Masterchef juggernaut.
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If you’re right and this wins awards, what are those awards really worth?
Results first, ego second. But good on them for giving it a try.
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Time for a rant. This has fired me up more than anything in the past 10 years I think.
The current model is equitable. We feed you free entertainment in exchange for watching a few ads. This rubbish is plain insulting. I am relieved to see the ratings suffering and I think it sends a clear message that consumers won’t be taken for fools.
As a consumer, I find this type of content insidious, greedy in the extreme, and a an indictment on where we are as humans beings. As a marketing professional I’m ashamed that my industry finds this acceptable. Nor do I find this groundbreaking or exciting. It’s lazy, pure and simple. It also leverages one part of a duopoly held with wide contempt and pretends to be doing the consumer a favour.
Unfortunately for the consumer/viewers and the entrants, the only winner is the supermarket. So therefore it’s not really a competition. Last night the high priced macadamia and maple ice cream or hot and spicy vindaloo may have deserved to win, but from a business perspective it was clear from the outset the only winner could be the chilli con carne. Keep the winning recipe cheap to produce and middle of the road – there’s less risk, more profit. Mildly entertaining if you are watching with your marketing hat on.
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The problem with this show is not its branded content. It is just not a very good idea for Woolworths. There is nothing new here. Innovative products just don’t sit very well with a company like Woolworths which is so price driven. Wouldn’t it have been better to develop it as a niche vehicle for the retailer’s other companies. Don’t they own Thomas Dux in order to compete against Harris Farm? If you took this angle this idea could have worked and proved to both retailer and broadcaster that branded content has a real place if intelligently worked through and using the softly softly approach of the best British entertainment formats. Ten should take a deep long look at itself before it jumps to conclusions about branded entertainment.
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Groan. Not another cooking show! Could it be that we are just sick of a cooking show!
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What the ratings tell us is this: when you look at TV you see some really bad shows rating quite well. So if a show doesn’t rate well it must be utter contrived stupid drivel.
Like this one. That’s what the ratings tell us.
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The first look at the preview made me excited. I thought it sounded like a great idea, and that was when I still only had a vague suspicion Woolies was behind it. The execution however is pretty poor. It’s as if they had a great idea and rushed to produce it, forgetting all the things that make TV entertaining; conflict, story-line, characters. It’s all too quick and superficial. A winner per episode!?? We never get to know the contestants
And one other thing hinted to by Sarah; people have food-show fatigue. After having finished another season of watching grown-ups treated like kids in Masterchef we need a break!
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Sarah – U may just have hit the nail on the head!
Give us something new before we leave TV behind and search for content on other platforms…
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I think I have missed the memo – you know, the one that says ALL shows on TV must be cooking shows, be about cooking, involve cooking or flog purple stone saucepans.
Do I need to list them?
Plus, they’re becoming more specialised, more niche: a BAKING show? Biccies, cake muffins. Mmmm.
What about ‘The Farmer Wants A Feed’ or ‘Millionaire Hotplate’.
Where’s “The Beer Show”, eh?
Hey Hey used to be a hangover show (when it was on Sat mornings), where’s today’s hangover show? Complete with recipes and antidotes. ‘The BLT Show’?
Where’s the “Cooking a Decent Feed with Just a Microwave” show? Presented by a newly-divorced Celeb.
We’ve got “Songs from The Block” on CD, what about “Chippie’s Chips” or “Brickie’s Bickies” and “Plasterer’s Potatos” recipes in a simple, laminated book and DVD boxed set?
‘Recipes from a SmartPhone’ – contestants are texted a message containing a recipe, they have to get from where they are to somewhere they can shop and cook. Hilarious fun ensues.
The fun will never end.
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I have a theory as to why most ‘reality-tv’ based formats are now failing…
Let’s presume 15 minutes of fame is what people desire, and the ‘I can do that’ aspect of accessible reality tv (think BB, the Block, etc) enables us to place ourselves in the shoes of the contestants. Then, we watch ordinary folk become pseudo-celebrities and not unlike buying a lotto ticket, all of a sudden begin to dream of what could be for ourselves.
Now, 10-15 years on, who remembers who won BB 4? Or The Block series 22? These people are long forgotten, and so too the dream (or desire) to want to be forgotten ourselves. Which leaves the show as entertainment value in itself…and I think we all know the answer to that – I mean really, how many years of watching people compete in the kitchen can one person really sustain interest in?
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FAIL for Woolworths.
I went to buy the Chilli Con Carne from last nights program. Proudly displayed in the freezer cabinet, with program branded POS.
Only problem? Nobody had loaded it into the system, so it shows up as “Not for Sale”.
Don’t you hate it when you fall at the last hurdle?
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The problem with the show is that it’s boring. These home cooks show rudimentary skills at best. Off the back of MasterChef, it’s dull. And the editing needs to be tighter. Opening with the ‘failed’ contestants vying to get a golden ticket is incredibly uninteresting. It should be better.
PS my local Woolies did NOT have any Croq’s when I went shopping on the weekend nor a display for them. Surely Woolies needs to get behind this thing for it to work or is this a symptom of their own internal doubts?
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I continue to be amazed that Australians put up with Free to Air TV in this day and age. So I can’t say I’m shocked that a long advert broken up by ads isn’t exactly hot.
The surprise isn’t how small the audience was – but the fact that anyone whatsoever tuned in once they figured out it wan’t actually a program. I know Queer Eye got away this – but that was a decade ago when the world was still figuring out that the Internet was doing to TV what TV had done to the radio.
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The cast are quite simply not talented enough to pull this off.
Entertainment is hard learned skill usually over a long time.
Nobby might be avery good creative director but he ain’t entertaining.
Likewise the lady from Woolies.
Can you imagine the pressure on the programming guys when this one came through sales?
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If this show had bombed on seven you could blame it on the branding. As it is it’s not clear. They put the show online for free before it aired but then didn’t tell you who the winner was. They didn’t say that before you started watching so they put as lot of people off. Also it’s on 10. Nothing much is working on ten. I personally think it’s too far with the branding but I think masterchef is too far so what do I know. I don’t understand why more companies aren’t just sponsoring some online shows. Acura sponsors Seinfeld’s webs series. Their name is on it forever. Fosters sponsor Alan Partridge in the UK. Give some people some money to make something and stick and ad at the front. If you offered some podcasters some cash they’d play an ad at the front of their shows, some of them get really big audiences you wouldn’t otherwise reach.
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Comes across as a bad UK cooking show Since there is not much locally grown talent. Carolyn could have been given a better role than female wallpaper.
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It tells us advertorials don’t rate – which is of course something everyone knew, but decided to ignore by calling it “branded entertainment”.
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Harry – Harris Farm is based in NSW only….so that model would not work…
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Its too complicated a concept for a main analogue commercial channel ; its more suited to SBS.
The old luvvies who won’t change their channel want something dumb and simple like “The Block” or “The Amazing 80s”.
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“It felt to me like it needed less agency creative input and more tv producer input.”
Well said Blutack. There’s a line where viewers will accept brand integration into content. TV producers are invariably more adept at knowing where that line is versus agency creatives who are used to hearing the client say ‘can you make the logo be 30% bigger?’. Bigger/more isn’t always best.
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I wanted Diane’s product to win as I can’t find a mustard pickle which is close enough to the Crosse and Blackwell brand of piccalilli that was discontinued.
I’m also disappointed that this show is a shameless plug for Woolworth’s private label Select.It’s about time Select products stopped pushing well-known brands off the supermarket shelf.
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\If Woolworths is bankrolling the the whole thing (ala McDonalds with the reboot of ‘It’s A Knockout!’), then Ten really has nothing to lose. Sadly, I can see more of these storyline-based infomercials in future – many of which being bastardised reboots of ideas either from other countries or other eras.
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Oh goody – here we go again! Yet ANOTHER cooking show sponsored by a greedy supermarket chain, beseeching us to buy MORE food to stuff into our already bulging bellies. Do we need to question why Australia is now rated as the most obese nation on Earth – duh, I don’t think so!!! And … don’t we already have enough Freeview shopping channels, without the traditional so called “entertainment” channels reinventing themselves – ie, one long advertisement interspersed with ads for the same company. Wake up TV producers – we weren’t born yesterday! Is it surprising that pay TV is so popular, or that we are so enthusiastic about purchasing DVD’s to watch while these appalling shows are on air, or downloading/fast-tracking overseas shows that are actually entertaining?
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I’m over reality tv and cheap entertainment. Shows like this are scraping the bottom of the barrel, nothing original, all the same format, over-saturation with cooking shows and anything related to cooking. In reality, with everyone so busy nowadays, who has the time or inclination to repeat any of what is shown to be made at home? Very few I think.
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I actually really like Recipe to Riches! Last night “Chocorn” was made, and I couldn’t wait to go to Woolies to buy it! At $7.99 a box, i thought this little indulgence was worth it! I love this show!
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