Brief:

• Genesis Motor America is sponsoring an online cooking show produced by Tastemade that will give viewers a way to buy ingredients from Amazon Fresh, the e-commerce company's grocery delivery service. Each episode of the five-part "Origins" series, which this week started streaming on Tastemade's YouTube and Facebook channels, profiles a chef who shows how to cook a dish from their culture and traditions, according to an announcement emailed to Mobile Marketer.
• Before recording the series, Genesis, Tastemade and Amazon Advertising built a custom culinary space at Tastemade Studios outfitted with Amazon's smart home technology, including its connected oven and Echo Show 8 display. Amazon Advertising, the company's ad sales unit, also created a virtual showroom for Genesis that gives viewers a way to learn more about its vehicles and "Origins" series.
• Doubling down on video streaming content designed for social sites, Tastemade worked with the "Origins" chefs to create 10 short videos to stream on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. The videos include a "How-to" series showing the chef making a simplified recipe while demonstrating proper cooking methods, and a series called "Art of Plating" that offers tips on how to craft meals so they look like they were served in a restaurant, per the announcement.

Insight:

Genesis, the luxury vehicle unit of Hyundai Motor Group, aims to reach high-end consumers with its sponsorship of a cooking show that also lets people order ingredients from Amazon's grocery delivery service. The vehicle maker wants viewers to associate its brand with chic design and smart technology, as the videos were shot in a sleek kitchen studio equipped with Amazon smart home tech that responds to voice commands.

The virtual showroom that Amazon created for Genesis demonstrates how the vehicles can be equipped with some of that smart technology, including Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant that lets drivers use voice commands for remote start, temperature control and other in-car features. The showroom may help to generate sales leads for Genesis dealers during the rollout of the GV80, the luxury brand's first SUV. As the carmaker seeks to revive sales after the pandemic-induced recession hurt the automotive industry, its sponsorship of "Origins" can help to reach potential car buyers during the recovery.

The collaboration with Tastemade and Amazon Advertising on "Origins" is notable for providing an end-to-end consumer experience of watching a cooking show and easily ordering the products directly from Amazon Fresh for delivery. The series demonstrates how Amazon can parlay its strength in product distribution into a more complete mix of content and commerce. The series also is a chance for Amazon to showcase its private-label brand of smart appliances, and how they can be integrated with its popular voice-enabled Echo devices.

For Tastemade, "Origins" is another sign of how the media company can integrate marketing messages with original video content that's also shoppable. Tastemade last month collaborated with Walmart on the rollout of shoppable streaming content to give viewers more ideas on what to cook during the holidays. Special episodes of Tastemade's "Struggle Meals" cooking show let audiences text an on-screen number to add suggested ingredients to a cart on the Walmart app, and place an order for pickup or delivery. Before that, Tastemade worked with Hyundai on a four-part series that chronicled several young adults taking fantasy road trips in its vehicles.