Hearst Makes Recipes More Shoppable on Its Magazine Websites

Hearst Magazines, a global media company with nearly 260 magazines and 200 websites (including 25 in the U.S.), has grown its partnership with Chicory, a commerce media platform specialized in recipe content.

As of March 15, Hearst is utilizing Chicory's full suite of publisher-tailored advertising solutions to help site visitors more easily cook their favorite recipes, according to a media release. Chicory now powers contextual commerce across 17 brand sites, including Delish, Good Housekeeping, The Pioneer Woman, Country Living, Women's Health and Men's Health.

“This technology will be a benefit to our advertisers in the food and grocery category, helping demonstrate the power of our editorial brands to drive action,” Lisa Howard, global chief revenue officer of Hearst Magazines, said in the release. “We look forward to taking this new capability to market via our Food Industry team.”

As part of the expanded relationship, Chicory's Recipe Activation experience is being deployed, plus recipes across several of Hearst’s lifestyle sites now feature Chicory's signature shoppable recipe button. That enables site visitors to go from inspiration to checkout in a few clicks.

Chicory's integrations with more than 60 retailers also gives shoppers the ability to complete checkout at a preferred retailer in their area.

In addition to Chicory's shoppable recipe button, the brand sites are leveraging Chicory Premium, a solution consisting of contextual, in-recipe ads. Chicory's proprietary natural language processing algorithm serves up “hyper-relevant” featured ads to the recipe content on the page as a way to enhance the overall user experience for site visitors, per the release.

Chicory offers two types of premium advertising placements: in-lines and pairings.

• In-line units appear directly beneath recipe ingredient lines and are targeted to specific ingredient keywords.
• Pairings units appear at the end of the ingredient list and are targeted to recipe categories based on keywords in recipe titles (e.g., target recipes by diet & lifestyle, seasonal themes, etc.)

"We're incredibly excited to grow our relationship with Hearst Magazines and expand our shoppable recipe network," Yuni Sameshima, Chicory CEO and co-founder, said in the release. "The engagement we're seeing from their sites is further validation that contextual commerce is a powerful monetization tool for publishers, especially when the ads prioritize the experience of the end user. Our product team is focused on delivering features, like multi-retailer selection, that directly benefit the shopper and, in turn, drive higher engagement for our clients."

Chicory says this expansion of capabilities offered across the brand sites comes amid growing demand for contextual advertising solutions. As CPG brands prepare for the deprecation of the third-party cookie and shift more dollars to shopper marketing budgets, in-recipe advertisements are becoming a key component of a complete CPG marketing strategy.