Challenge

The first challenge was persuading Conde Nast leadership to sign off on creating a digital experience in the first place. Gourmet’s online presence had, up to this point, been run by a separate digital company under the Conde Nast umbrella (CondeNet), and was a sub-brand under the Epicurious banner. As such, the brand was less involved in their own digital presence and was losing a critical digital footprint. The goal was to flip that script and bring it in-house on the brand side while also getting the print staff more involved.

Once approval was secured, the next mission was to define an online home for the oldest epicurean magazine in America.

Multiple steps toward building the digital experience would need to be taken simultaneously, including: staffing a digital team of editors, designers, and a video producer; defining a visual look and feel in collaboration with the magazine’s creative director; filling a roster of contributors; and defining an editorial approach.

Beyond building out the operations was a soft power necessity of winning over a hesitant print staff of editors, designers, photographers, and cooks and positively aligning them with the new digital initiative.

Strategy

Unlike most magazine sites, the Gourmet site was created from the very beginning to be a true companion to the print product; a standalone, daily publishing endeavor that hewed to the creative rigor and editorial excellence expected of the venerated brand.

The site editorial would be a more bold, high-low take on the magazine’s aspirational and sophisticated approach while staying anchored to the core ethos of the brand.

In alignment with the print title, the design would be clean to allow photography to take center stage.

Execution

Editorial

The editorial purview was wide and the exploration of the culinary world was expansive.

Articles from Gourmet’s storied history including quintessential pieces by M.F.K. Fisher and the David Foster Wallace modern classic, Consider the Lobster, would live alongside daily publishing of exclusive new material by our editors and a host of world-class contributors including:

Pulitzer-prize winner Jonathan Gold

Best-selling author Ann Patchett

The Splendid Table host, Francis Lam

Saveur co-founder Colman Andrews

Village Voice and Eater restaurant critic Robert Sietsema

Director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, John T. Edge

Writers from every region of the U.S. and major cities around the world were brought onboard to align with Gourmet’s dual polestars—food and travel.

Each contributor would get a unique, often unconventional, photo treatment in keeping with the anonymity many food critics desired. Black and white was chosen to more readily include historical contributors to the magazine

The site became the home of the brand’s staple restaurant reviews, shook off the snobbish rep of wine writing, explored the challenges of farming in space, and memorialized moonshiner Popcorn Sutton.

Tejal Rao wrote about Chemex inventor and bon vivant Peter Schlumbohm, Electralane guitarist Mia Clarke explored about the best rock venues with food, and professor of cloud physics Robert Pincus covered caramel.

Q&As dug deep into the minds of the world’s greatest chefs, scientists, food policy experts, and cultural icons.

Gourmet launched in January 1941 and the long history of the magazine was researched and refined into modernized digital exclusive collections of the best cookies and cocktails from every year of the publication.

Created in collaboration with editors, test kitchen cooks, and in-house photographers, the online exclusive feature Gourmet’s Favorite Cookies was nominated for a National Magazine Award and was later adapted as The Gourmet Cookie Book for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

A street food feature brought together local writers from around the country reporting on the street food scenes in New York City, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area.

VIDEO

Anticipating the importance of video we hired the first full time title-side video producer at the company and created a series of recurring features, including:

“The Ingredient” put the spotlight on chefs who opined about one ingredient they love and show how to use it. Examples include Jose Andreas on White Asparagus, Wylie Dufresne on Sake Lees, and Floyd Cardoz on Tamarind.

“Extreme Frugality” was a documentary style series that followed author W. Hodding Carter on his quest to live a more frugal culinary life with his family.

The Test Kitchen allowed the cooks in the Gourmet test kitchen to explore techniques and ingredients, get creative with exclusive online recipes like Boozy Eggplant Bomboloni and Avocado Marshmallows, and amass a library of cooking basics. The Test Kitchen videos ultimately won the James Beard Award for multimedia.

Working in collaboration with WGBH-Boston and Zero Point Zero—the producers of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservation—we created a digital home for Gourmet’s public television show, Diary of a Foodie, that included recipes from the show and exclusive video.

Podcast

Finally, the Gourmet Podcast miniseries was produced and edited in-house and featured interviews between editors and their contributors including author Ann Patchett, artist Maira Kalman, and the original road food warriors Jane and Michael Stern, among others.

RESULTS

1M

Quickly topped 1M organic unique visitors within 6 months of new site launch

170%

Exceeded inaugural year revenue projections by 170%

Winner: James Beard Award for video series, The Test Kitchen, during first year of operation.

Gourmet Digital Content Strategy