Brief:

• McCormick, the maker of packaged foods and seasonings, unveiled an app to help home chefs learn more about its products while they shop, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer. McCormick Flavor Maker lets shoppers scan its packaging with a smartphone camera to see recipes and instructional videos.
• The app lets shoppers buy McCormick products for delivery from services such as Instacart and Amazon Fresh. In addition, Flavor Maker helps to organize favorite recipes, build "flavor boards" for menu planning and new dishes and add ingredients to a shopping list.
• App users can watch an immersive virtual reality (VR) video called "Fields of Vision" that shows how spices are harvested in different regions worldwide. McCormick worked with ad agency Grey and app developer ArcTouch to create the Flavor Maker app.

Insight:

McCormick's Flavor Maker app lets the company showcase its brand of spices, condiments, seasoning mixes and flavorings in an environment that it controls — unlike cooking shows and recipe apps that mention ingredients in broadly generic terms. While McCormick has been a longtime sponsor of cooking shows, the app lets the brand have complete control over how its products are presented in a mobile format that's appealing to tech-savvy young adults.

Reaching millennials and Generation Z, which are more multiethnic than older generations, is a key growth strategy for McCormick as a provider of spices and ethnic flavors. The app follows McCormick's introduction in March of co-branded spice mixes with BuzzFeed called Tasty Seasoning Blends, also aimed at younger audiences who get inspiration from "hands in pans" cooking videos.

McCormick this year has been active with various campaigns aimed at mobile consumers. In January, its Frank's RedHot brand of hot sauce hosted a Twitter sweepstakes during the Super Bowl as part of its "I Put That $#!t on Everything" campaign. Frank's asked viewers to watch other brands' commercials and to tweet the chili pepper emoji, an emoji related to the ad's category and the hashtag #FranksSweepstakes during the commercial break in which the ad airs.