Stand By For Demo
The new collaboration between Premier Retail Networks (PRN) and Rouxbe Video Technologies Inc appears to serve several purposes. Under the partnership, in-store videos from Rouxbe, the online cooking school, will show shoppers some of the basics they need to cook assorted dishes ranging from "unusual appetizers and homemade soups to international cuisines and delectable desserts."
Then, anyone who likes what they see can sign up at home for either free or paid-for content at what Rouxbe claims is "the web's first-ever online cooking school." Declaring that "we are currently teaching home cooks in 180 countries around the world," the goal is "to help you become a better and more confident cook by teaching you basic to advanced cooking skills and techniques - the same things that chefs learn in a professional cooking school - so you can be free from being a slave to just recipes." Recipes fit techniques and consumers' famously busy lifestyles. Tips, quizzes and personal support from chefs are also on tap.
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Customized videos will be shown in-store through PRN's Checkout TV network and TV Wall network of HDTV screens. PRN said it has more than 210,000 screens in over 6,400 retail locations worldwide, reaching more than 600 million shoppers with its programs each month."
Perhaps most interesting about the project is its target audience. Rouxbe says their students are "home cooks of all ages that are motivated to become better cooks." Focusing on techniques taught through 8-12 minute lessons online, programming on Checkout TV is usually no more than 30 seconds per segment.
Jodie Chase, spokesperson for PRN, told RetailWire, "With an average wait time of five minutes in the checkout line, Checkout TV network offers marketers a great forum to engage captive shoppers about products and services available both inside and outside the supermarket ... content selection varies by retailer depending upon their in-store programming strategy."
With the in-store program now complementing the website's free sample lessons, time spent watching may be the incentive to spending more time - and money - on the overall shopping experience.
Discussion Questions: What do you think of brief cooking demonstrations being shown on in-store TVs? Can cooking programs work given the length of time needed to watch? Whereabouts in-store is the best place to position screens?
[Author's commentary] Customers watching while they shop, or once they are back home, will find the programs informative and detailed, therefore necessarily time consuming. The question, then: is the collaboration intended more as a marketing tool to sell membership subscriptions than as a prompt for planning meals and choosing different ingredients while still in the store?