In the 1920′s General Mills sponsored a radio cooking show called “The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air.” Hundreds of thousands of homemakers tuned in each day to learn new recipes and cooking tips. Eighty years on Betty Crocker is still going strong thanks in part to it`s commitment to branded infotainment as a way of reaching it`s core audience.
Today the Betty Crocker brand is being supported by some rather impressive web-based tools and services. On the Betty Crocker website you can download an iPhone cookbook application, you can create your own online recipe box and you can view a wide variety of how-to videos that have been developed in partnership with Howdini- a How-to video site targeted to woman.
Creating how-to, informational and general help videos that support the users and ecosystems around your brand is a smart way to keep your brand relevant and to ensure that your core customers continue to find value in what you do.
If Betty Crocker can keep something as generic and undifferentiated as cake mix top-of-mind for the last 80 years you can probably envision a way to add value to your customers and prospects.
