Premieres: Tuesday, Jan. 22, 8 p.m.
ABC's latest stab at culinary competition, The Taste features food celebrities Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Ludo Lefebvre and Brian Malarkey as a panel set to pick the best of 16 competitors -- who range from professional chefs to home cooks.
ABC’s new cooking competition series The Taste has created several multiplatform integration partnerships ahead of the show’s Tuesday premiere.
ABC’s integrated partnership with Hellmann’s/Best Foods and Ford, along with producer Kinetic Content’s trade-out partners — Williams-Sonoma, Whole Foods Market, Alamos and Southwest Airlines — will be featured in the show, which premieres at 8 p.m. with a two-hour episode.
“We are absolutely thrilled to have the support of such a distinctive group of advertising partners in season one of The Taste,” said Chris Coelen, founder of Kinetic and executive producer. “We believe our new series is a terrific platform for each of these brands to reach their marketing objectives with seamless integrations that will be experienced by our very passionate viewers who love all things food.”
The Taste features celebrity chefs Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Ludo Lefebvre and Brian Malarkey acting as mentors to the show’s 16 contestants. They also will judge the competitors’ dishes blind with no knowledge of who they could be sending home.
Among the sponsored integrations:
• Hellmann’s (aka Best Foods west of the Rockies) is sponsoring the “The Blue Ribbon Challenge,” a “real-time” competition where five winners will have the opportunity to appear on the series by entering their own recipe. The Taste winner will receive a $100,000 cash prize from Hellmann’s/Best Foods.
• The “Warriors in Pink” campaign, supporting the fight against breast cancer, also will be featured. Talent will wear specially designed aprons that will be available for sale to the public, with Ford donating to charity. Ford also is taking part in a sweepstakes offering the chance to win a cooking session with one of the mentors, and the series’ winner will win a 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid.
