Jamie Oliver’s Drink Tube shakes up content marketing cocktail
Jamie Oliver’s Drinks Tube YouTube channel is setting its sights on other video channels to host its content as it looks to maintain the momentum that has seen it amass more than 100,000 subscribers in a year.
Europe’s self-styled “fastest growing drinks channel” will spend much of 2015 forging a more formidable presence beyond Google’s walled garden in order to fuel a content marketing machine that has already generated over 3.3 million views.
Produced by Fresh One Productions and Gravity Road, the channel’s content spans step-by-step guides on serving popular cocktails to information on the latest wines and craft beers, to food and drink pairings.
With a content strategy in place, the channel is accelerating efforts to nail down a distribution plan capable of reaching not just fans regularly but those who don’t know it exists.
Facebook has been earmarked as the plan’s initial focus with Drinks Tube’s producers looking to exploit a video platform that enjoyed a 75 per cent uplift in usage in 2014. Tapping the growing link between video and social media is key to extending the reach of its videos, according to Drinks Tube, leveraging a cocktail space that is inherently social.
Spurred by the belief that intent is not only created in a search box, Drinks Tube’s producers are trying to blend owned media, earned media and search. The company declined to share further details on what such a media mix would turn out but is likely to draw inspiration from its larger and older Food Tube sister channel. Industry observers hail the channel as one of the few content marketing success stories with its ability to share recipe content beyond YouTube key to its growth.
Another key element to the proliferation of Drinks Tube’s content moving forward is its tie-up with Bacardi. The rum maker is midway through a three-year deal with the channel that uses its products in various videos, a technique that offsets its more traditional advertising.
Bacardi’s plan is in-synch with Drinks Tube’s content strategy that uses paid media to complement its content rather than view advertising as the content.
Jonathan Almond, channel manager of Drinks Tube, said: “In 2015 we’re making sure that we have all our key cocktails covered off and that our best content is focused on those. We’ve got some new products that we’re developing and we’re also looking at how we can integrate more closely with Jamie’s restaurants and bars.”