Wonder bets on retail media with Tastemade acquisition

• Wonder, which operates delivery-first restaurants and is parent to Blue Apron and Grubhub, has acquired content media company Tastemade, per details shared with Marketing Dive. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
• Wonder plans to create a media network that can mix Tastemade’s brand storytelling capabilities and digital audience with Wonder’s first-partt data and delivery capabilities. Tastemade’s audience totals 160 million followers across social media and 13 million monthly users across streaming channels.
• This is Wonder’s second recent acquisition after its deal for Grubhub closed earlier this yr. In the newest deal, Wonder gains a creative studio and Tastemade’s connected TV (CTV) know-how, expanding the corporate’s food-related services and its ability to supply promoting opportunities to brands.

Add Wonder to the growing list of non-retail firms seeking to use their first-party data and captive audiences to create a media network. Like United Airlines’ Kinective Media, which uses the corporate’s category knowledge to focus on travelers, Wonder intends to leverage its insights into the food category to create ad programs for brand partners.

“We’re excited to encourage consumers through world-class video storytelling across the Wonder family of brands, while enhancing our ability to deliver modern, end-to-end promoting opportunities for brand partners,” said Marc Lore, founder and CEO of Wonder, in a press statement. 

While media networks have been quickly proliferating, the query stays as to how successful they might be. A recent report from Forrester found that many retail media networks — outside of Amazon’s, which is way and away the dominant network — have yet to live as much as their promise for advertisers. 

One factor that may match in Wonder’s favor is Tastemade’s activity in CTV. CTV ad spending is projected to surpass linear TV ad spending by 2028, based on eMarketer. Tastemade’s creative studio can support a big selection of name opportunities, including 10-second shorts and feature-length documentaries.

Further bolstering Wonder’s overall proposition is the potential convergence of retail media and CTV. Earlier this yr, Amazon unveiled Brand+, a tool that uses artificial intelligence to mine shopping, browsing and streaming data to optimize CTV promoting across its retail media network. 

Tastemade co-founders Larry Fitzgibbon and Steven Kydd will take executive roles inside Wonder. Fitzgibbon will likely be CEO of Tastemade and executive vp of Wonder Media, Advertising & Content, while Kydd will likely be president and head of business development and international at Tastemade. The team will report back to Wonder Chief Growth and Marketing Officer Daniel Shlossman.