Dive Brief:
- Whole Foods Market is collaborating with meditation app Headspace on an original video series that aims to help people focus on mindful shopping, cooking and eating. The four-part "Food for Mood" series premiered on the Whole Foods channel on Instagram's IGTV video streaming platform, per an announcement.
- Whole Foods teamed with chef Sophia Roe and Dr. Uma Naidoo, the Harvard nutritional psychiatrist and author of "This Is Your Brain on Food," to show how to make recipes that inspire four positive moods: joyful, energized, focused and relaxed. The first episode started streaming on March 18, and future shows will appear through the end of the month.
- As part of the spring campaign, Headspace created three original guided meditations titled "Joyful shopping," "Cooking with gratitude" and "Mindful eating" that are available on its website. Headspace also is offering a free one-month trial to its service, per the announcement.
Dive Insight:
The collaboration between Whole Foods Market and Headspace on an IGTV video series and collection of guided meditations aims to inspire consumers with recommendations to improve physical and mental well-being. The "Food for Mood" series is geared for easy viewing on a mobile device with its vertical video format and five-minute episodes that consumers can watch throughout the day. The content helps to reinforce that idea that Whole Foods and Headspace can help people to be more mindful in their shopping, cooking and eating habits.
The pandemic has raised awareness about personal health, with many consumers seeking ways to improve their physical and mental well-being, Whole Foods found in a survey it commissioned from the Harris Poll. Eighty-five percent of respondents said they wanted to take steps to boost their overall well-being, while 79% want to learn to eat more mindfully. The "Food for Mood" series and guided meditations from Headspace address those priorities as frazzled consumers cope with the disruptions to their daily routines during the global health crisis.
As wellness and mindfulness have increasingly become priorities for consumers during the pandemic, Headspace has partnered with several brands to bring its guided meditations to different audiences. Headspace teamed with Colgate-Palmolive to offer weekly programming in the Hum by Colgate app, and worked with the nonprofit educational organization behind the show "Sesame Street" to create six animated shorts that appeared on YouTube and YouTube Kids.
Whole Foods and Headspace are the latest brands to create a video series for IGTV, which gives them a platform to reach a broad audience with original content that they control. Bayer's Alka-Seltzer pain reliever is taking a similar tack with this week's launch of "Making Mocktails with Tom and Ariana," a digital video series that shows how to make mocktails with its fizzy tablets. Starring Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval, the bartenders from Bravo TV's "Vanderpump Rules," the series provides tips on how to recover from celebrations for holidays like St. Patrick's Day, Cinco De Mayo. Burger chain McDonald's ran a mini-series on IGTV as part of its celebrations for Lunar New Year, while apparel chain Abercrombie & Fitch streamed a seven-part series about mental health and wellness in the LGBTQ community on the platform.
