Campbell’s Soup Wants to Target You With Content in Your Kitchen

Today, Instagramming food is nearly as common as saying grace, and it soon may come with some content intervention. That’s because we’re approaching a day when brands can detect what you’re eating via search and social media data and serve targeted content to go along with your meal.

“Contextualized search will bridge the gap between consumer and brand”

During “The Dinner Table of the Future” panel at Internet Week New York, Umang Shah, Campbell’s Soup’s global director of social media and digital marketing, proposed that kind of personally customized content as the way forward.

“Contextualized search will bridge the gap between consumer and brand,” Shah declared. “As a result, brands will understand an individual’s dietary needs and what he or she looks for. We can then present content that’s compelling to them in an area that they’re comfortable with, in a channel that they’re comfortable with.”

Contextualized search will give brands and publishers the ability to recognize user intent and make informed decisions based on recent activity. For example, instead of a publication reblogging a Tumblr recipe post, they might serve a customized, branded recipe tailored to the user’s personal needs. This customization will, in turn, improve engagement.

Data begets content

The data fueling this movement isn’t just coming from social media. Currently, wearable technologies like Fitbit and Nike’s FuelBand are gathering valuable data on user behavior and offering computer-generated advice through apps and other software. Just last year, Gap experimented with Gravity, a web personalization firm. The companies combined customers’ personal browsing history and social activity to seed content from its style blog, styld.by, to Gap’s publishing partners.

Netflix, the streaming video giant, may start to only show personalized recommendations to build a unique channel for each viewer. In the realm of startups promising to combat the content deluge with artificial intelligence, IBM’s Watson group recently bought Cognea, a developer of virtual agents that adapt to the user’s activities to serve timely and customized content.

Eventually, this type of technology may come to connected smart appliances as well. As a result, brands like Campbell’s Soup may be able to recommend products or cookie tips via a smart refrigerator or oven while the chef cooks along with their favorite food channel.

“The potential of a connected kitchen will allow consumers to share data if they want to have a better experience,” Shah says. “More technology and more devices allows us to customize as a brand. This will create better moments, instead of being ruined by a poor meal. Ultimately, it’ll create better memories, which I think is everyone’s goal.”

Image via Huffington Post