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How CookIt Media Is Helping Brands And Creators Break Bread
00:27:31
Next in Creator Media spoke with Laurie Buckle CEO and Founder, CookIt Media, about her journey from print's golden age to trying to wrangle the YouTube ecosystem. Buckle also talked about what brands get right and wrong about this space, and why food is so perfect for other revenue streams.
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- [00:00]
A
Looking to get more out of your YouTube advertising? With view Planner, you can buy with total confidence and clarity. View Planner is a verified YouTube brand suitability and contextual targeting partner in the YouTube measurement program. Recognized by Google as a trusted and independent leader in driving and measuring performance on YouTube, their advanced technology gives you a clear edge. Only with View Planner we're talking custom curated contextual collections, exclusive content strategies, transparent reporting and AI driven optimization to deliver real results. Don't let your budget go to waste. Partner with View Planner and experience the difference. Visit viewplanner.com now to unlock your full advertising potential on YouTube. That's V U E P L-A-N-N-E-R.com this week on Next in Creator Media, I spoke with Lori Buckle. She's the CEO and Founder of Cook It Media. Lori is one of those ex print executives who is supposed to be lost in this digital world. Instead, she's built a unique company in Cook it that attempts to bridge the gap between brands and creators while also helping ensure that YouTube talent is able to build sustainable and varied businesses. Cooked is really exactly the kind of company I'd like to highlight more of on this new show. So let's get started. Hi everybody, I'm Mike Shields. Welcome to Next in Creator Media. I'm here with Lori Buckle. She is the founder and CEO of Cook It. Hey Lori, thanks for being here.
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B
Hey Mike. So happy to be here.
- [01:24]
A
Really excited to talk to you because you are the kind of person I want to be talking to you more of. I want to get into your background, your unique experience in this world, but why don't we just tell people? I think basically it's good to start with the what is cookie. Give us the origin story. Why this? Why now?
- [01:39]
B
Happy to do that. It is my favorite topic. So just for a little bit of background, I Most of my career was spent in traditional media, specifically in food magazines. Bon Appetit, Fine Cooking, Better Homes and Gardens, Food Network magazine. Like all of those sorts of opportunities.
- [01:57]
A
You're the kind of person that's supposed to be totally lost right in this. In this new world, you don't know what to do with yourself.
- [02:02]
B
Oh my gosh. I do have some friends like that. But no, for me there's this through line with everything that I've always done and ever wanted to do. I literally wanted to be a magazine editor. Like since I was 10 or something. I would steal my mother's copies of Vogue before she could get them out of the mailbox basically. And for me it was always about content. One of my favorite things to do is to, like, sit down somewhere where there's a pile of magazines, like a dentist's office or something like that, and start clipping through something that I've never seen before and immediately get, like, lured into something and realizing, pausing a minute, realizing, oh, that's really good content. I wouldn't have read that otherwise until it really caught me. And I think that experience and that kind of curiosity that you bring to looking at the world through the lens of content has always been at the core of what I do. Like I said, I was in traditional print until about 2013, 14, when it really began to look to me like all of the things that we were accustomed to doing, like photo shoots with a team of 15 people that was $75,000, like, that kind of thing that's just was going to go away, that.
- [03:06]
A
The brand hear the violins playing in.
- [03:08]
B
The background like they were sad violence. And I was doing this kind of weird experiment with sort of what was I using on the digital side of things. Bloggers were becoming, you know, sort of a much bigger piece of the pie. And what was, you know, where were my magazines and that kind of thing. And I found myself more and more often spending this time, all this time on the digital side and cooking from blogs and that kind of thing. Initially a little bit like they're not the real thing. You know, I learned how to. How to eat at Bon Appetit and how to test recipes seven times in a row.
- [03:39]
A
Cute. But it's not legit, right? It's not.
- [03:40]
B
Yet it's not legit. They were hobbies. I kept thinking, my value there is really helping these people understand that this content that they're creating has value effectively and has the potential to be a business. So cook. It really started as a consulting firm and I got really lucky right from the beginning and connected with one of the individuals who's gone on to be an amazing creator. Her name is Gabby from what's Gotta Be Cooking. And we got together, I think it was almost like a year. And really it was just a kind of back and forth of how can I help you? How can you help me? Kind of thing. Like, what is relevant, in my experience that is relevant to you, that is helping you build a better business.
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A
I'm sorry, at this time, are we still talking text for the most part, for these creators or. Not necessarily by that.
- [04:26]
B
No, we're actually talking food content at this point. Really realizing that these could be kind of the new food companies the new food media companies, if they understood how to run a business and how to. How to do things, just, I mean, even simple things like a content calendar, a focus on a particular consumer, a target audience, understanding brand story, understanding the pieces that you need to kind of create a place for yourself in the larger conversation about food and how to look at yourself as a business instead of a hobby. And I love, I still love that part, to be honest with you. I will help anybody with that anytime they want. And it is one of my favorite things to do because we often joke at work like, you know, it's like the creators, they'll get so concerned about an algorithm shift or something like that. And ultimately all of those things are challenges in this business particularly. But if you focus on good content, if you focus on content that is entertaining and educational and inspiring, all those things we know to be good content, you will succeed. It will all come together. And I think especially during COVID that was. It was so obvious because we were watching sort of food creators really rise so quickly, their traffic, you know, tripling, like all of those things because they understood that all these people were at home and they didn't know how to cook, they didn't know how to feed their families, they didn't know what a leak looked like, things like that, where they needed help. And those creators, you know, really rose to that opportunity and kind of proved the point of the value of the content.
- [05:59]
A
I think you're talking 10 years ago, and then you're getting the seeds of this business started.
- [06:03]
B
Yeah.
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A
Fast forward to today, like, with all the, like, what are we looking at? How many creators? What kind of things are you doing for them? What it look like? What's it look like in 20?
- [06:12]
B
Yeah. So gradually it became an agency. Once the creators that I had been working with and consulting were kind of coming back to me and saying, these brands, like, they're reaching out to me. I don't know what to say to them. But having been an editor who has a sales team and an editorial team, really comfortable in that space of talking with brands, kind of better understanding how to build that component into an opportunity for them. So at that point, we really did become an agency. We became an influencer marketing agency, working with creators to help them kind of create these partnerships that were going to fund their growth, that sort of thing.
- [06:48]
A
You know, we get hung up on labels in this world. But it's interesting you're calling because, you know, I want to. Everyone wants to put you in a bucket or something, but what you Call yourself an agency? Some of how do you make, make a distinction between like when you were doing, when you started doing the work you're doing, you had the rise of these MCNs on YouTube, right, that were sort of like ad networks, maybe some of them were producing. That era kind of came and went. And then you've also had like these influencer agencies that really specialize in finding creators all over the place. You sound like you're, you're an agency, but almost a little bit like a media company. Does it matter that the how you describe yourself and how. Where would you like to put yourself in this ecosystem?
- [07:28]
B
I think it definitely does matter. I think influencer marketing has, you know, people talk about it like the Wild west sort of thing. It has just been this business that people are coming to from many different backgrounds and people are kind of understanding the opportunities in many different ways. And the more sort of like the pieces of the pie that, you know, we begin to own, I think the better we are at really explaining our value and what we do and basically working with two clients. I think that's one of the most interesting things about it. It's a lot like magazine. You have readers and you have advertisers and it's the same thing here. We have creators, we have an exclusive roster of food creators that we have very carefully sort of created that, you know, we understand who they are, we work with them one on one sort of thing and we are able to connect them with brands that align and create partnerships that really succeed. So we are, we really, we talk about ourselves as an influencer marketing agency because that's the work that we do and a talent management company simply because those two things exist within, under the same roof.
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A
That's interesting. So I have a bunch of questions, but so who do you. Who comes to you on the, on the other side? Is it the cause? You know, agencies get threatened and you're on the. You could be seen as competition or not. Are you. Are media planning agencies coming to you for. With looking for help? Or is it like big agencies with creatives that are trying to extend into influencers? Like where does the money come in from? I guess if there's a standard way.
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B
Of where is it today?
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A
Yeah, of that happens.
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B
It is interesting because obviously the creators are our content effectively. We work with brands directly and we work with agencies as well. And by agency, I mean basically a PR agency, because a brand, a big brand especially will go to an agency for what they, you know, consider public relations. But these days public relations really has to include a heavy influencer component. So those agencies will come to us and say, can you help me cast this opportunity to create this particular strategy for this brand? And that's really our sweet spot along with working with brands and their in house marketing teams. I mean, our goal is to just, we're so good at what we do. We can take the work off the plate of the agency or the brand and we can help them identify goals specific to what they are, you know, what they're saying they want to do and help them figure out how, actually how to do it. What's the right way? What kind of creator do you want to work with? What are your priorities in terms of how you're going to really measure ROI and that kind of thing. So we are all over the place, all the time we travel, to be honest with you, we're a little bit like traveling salesman. Sometimes we hit the road and we really try to talk to these people because, because the industry is so evolutionary. It's often they think, okay, I want to get into influencer, but I don't really know how. What's the right way to do this? Who can I trust? Who can I, you know, kind of help me educate myself in terms of what I want to be doing? I think that's really our, our secret sauce.
- [10:36]
A
Give us some examples of some of the creators you might work with and maybe a range of possibilities. Like one creator does this with a brand. One is more of a media thing, one's more of a branded content. Like what does it look like?
- [10:46]
B
That's a good question. There's so many answers to that question. So we have a roster of somewhere between 30 and 35 people. It's changing a lot all the time. It's moving around, people are, you know, sort of coming in and it's fascinating. I think one of the most important things about Cook it though, that we probably should make sure we talk about is that these are food creators and these are food and food lifestyle creators. And the reason for that is because food itself, it's bigger than a category. It's not like style or travel or something like that. Food is big business. It's big business on the, you know, on the brand side of things, but it is also big business in the influencer side of things. Food creators create content that inherently performs because it's basically recipe focused for the most part. And recipes are engagement, if you see what I mean. You're going to look for something to make for dinner, you're going to make it that is engagement at its, know, sort of highest level.
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A
Yeah. There's the utility and then there's. There's also the. All the other reasons you engage with this kind of.
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B
Exactly. And food creators have an expertise that you know, just sort of the average person in the street does not have. They know how to develop recipes, they know how to create content that will really work for people. They understand food photography and food video and all those kinds of things. And it's, it's difficult to, you know, to consider that an agency that had food and this and that and that, all those things that they would know how to help as individuals. But because pretty much everybody on the staff has a food background, we all kind of come to it from multiple different ways. But I think the best way to say it is like, we speak food. We can talk to brands about, you know, their goals and that kind of thing, but we can also talk to creators about food itself and where it's going and how to understand how you're following the trends but still staying very true to your brand and who you are. I think that piece of it really is kind of defining that bigger sort of strategy about how are we doing what we do. I don't know if that exactly answered your question, but it is a key part of our business, I guess.
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A
Yeah. I'll ask another part to that is like our brands, you know, they're. They're all over the place and what they would want. But, you know, some of them are going to want to just align with certain creators, I think, in private, their audiences. Some want to have their products shoved into stuff. Some probably like to have TV like opportunities. So I guess I'm asking, are, are your creators looking to organize themselves a little bit more like media companies where they're having predictable shows and audiences, or they, they don't want to compromise the way they create and that just the brands have to kind of deal. Like, again, it's hard to summarize, but what does that kind of look like?
- [13:27]
B
I hear exactly what you're saying is that kind of yin yang of brand and creator and how they come together. We are, in my experience, the only agency I've ever come across that connects the brand and the creator. We talk about like a virtual dining table. Do you know what I mean? Like, let's sit everybody down in that room and let's talk together about the goals that each person has or each entity.
- [13:52]
A
This isn't like just a, hey, here's a database, and you look them up and we'll Call you very hands on.
- [13:57]
B
It's kind of the opposite of a database, to be honest. And it's sort of interesting to think about. If you were a brand or an agency, why would you want to go to a database of a million creators and try to pick somebody you think is going to work when you can go to an agency like ours and know that we know these people backwards and forwards, we live with them effectively day in and day out and guide them through the process of growth and all of their business opportunities. So it's really a smart thing to kind of, you know, put this, these two people together, put these two entities together and let the creator lead the conversation. Let the creator explain to the brand, this is my audience. This what they're interested in, this is what they expect me to do for them. And then let the creator hear from the brand about this is our goal. We're launching this new product and we want to get to this particular consumer segment. How can we do this together? And I really feel like when that happens, this business works so well. It's almost like at the core of what this business is because everybody is coming together and it truly is an authentic experience that the audience is embracing. You know, the audience is smart. I tell you, when something is sponsored and it's not, it's not true to who that person is, they're going to, they're going to ignore that and they're going to push back.
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A
They're not, it's not that they're against these. A lot of the, they like creators getting brand deals if you're a fan, right. But it's the way it's executed 100%.
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B
They, you know, if you, if you work with them, if you love a particular, if you're a creator and you love a particular kind of granola and you leave that granola on your counter, like all the time, like all your video is kind of just organically that, that granola is there. But then when that person becomes a partner with that granola brand, the audience basically says, well, of course she works with that brand. She loves them. She literally has that for breakfast every morning. And it's a whole different experience than that, you know, sort of like, well, why all of a sudden is she talking about this granola? When I saw her use this one the other day sort of thing. So it really is understanding that the potential for, you know, authenticity in this, this thing we do.
- [16:03]
A
You mentioned how a lot of your creators live and die by some of these things that are outside their control algorithm. Changes are most of them loyal to or do some primarily focus on one platform at a time. Like I'm a YouTuber and that's what I do and I'm a Pinterest one and that's what I. Or is it. Is it tending to be much more multi platform?
- [16:23]
B
Really good question. There's a lot of conversation about there out there about sort of omni platform strategy. From our perspective, we need to work with what the brands want to do. Do you know what I mean? And right now that is TikTok and Instagram and it's always kind of shifting, do you know what I mean? We'll have some brands come to us and say, well, so what do you think about YouTube or where are you guys now in terms of Pinterest and how that's working? So those are all platforms we stay expert in also including blogs. To be honest with you, blogs have kind of fallen out of fashion in terms of what brands are interested in. But because they perform so well, it's. And you know, we're always sort of pushing the brands to realize that you might want to include a sponsored blog post in that sort of package of things that you're looking at simply because it can do this. It's syndicated content, it's there forever, it comes back, there's SEO around it, like all of these things that make it such a good buy. But at this point in the sort of, you know, the world of what brands are interested in, in influencer marketing, blogs are not top of mind. So it's, it's kind of like we have to go where the brands want to go. Likewise the creators too.
- [17:35]
A
Big kind of broad question, but a lot of what you're describing makes total sense to me, but it isn't. You know, you talk about the evolutionary nature of trying to figure out how brands fund or interact with influencers, creators, and you have to, you know, a lot of times you involve sitting down and doing and, you know, ideating. None of that's simple. And you know, in an industry that likes things to be scalable and simple, can this world ever be, you know, maybe it's never going to be programmatic advertising where it's totally efficient and high speed, but can it ever be a place where it's, you know, organized and scalable and easy to move a lot of money, or is it always going to be like this and if you. If you know what I mean.
- [18:13]
B
Yeah, I really love that one. Having lived in the world of, you know, advertising versus editorial for most of my life, kind of thing. It's. It's such an interesting question. I. I think the answer is no. I think it's always going to be a little bit of insanity. And it's simply because there's a human in the middle. Do you know what I mean?
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A
That's what. What's great about it is also.
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B
It is also. It's like Achilles heel kind of thing. What is fascinating about it is that the person in the middle is evolving him or herself. Do you know what I mean? Like, what Cooked is focused on right now is kind of making brand partnerships an element of their revenue strategy. But they have so many other opportunities now to. To grow beyond just brand partnerships.
- [19:02]
A
So most of them don't necessarily live and die by advertising.
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B
I don't want them to. No.
- [19:07]
A
Yeah.
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B
I would much rather. And this is the consulting side of me. It's like, if there's a revenue opportunity for you out there, let's go for it. Let's figure out how to. How that works for you and how that enables you to grow your brand and, you know, awareness of who you are and that kind of thing. So we're looking at really kind of providing our roster with the backup for them, the understanding, the education, all those things that they need to figure out. Okay, I decided I wanted a podcast. Can you help me figure out how to go do that? I'd really like to write a cookbook. Can you help me figure out that I want a proprietary food product? Let's go do that together. So it's that kind of thing that I think we're going to see creators out there in far more diverse ways than just simply brand partnerships on a particular social platform.
- [19:54]
A
That's interesting. So that's probably the. You see this in the digital publishing world. Everybody's trying to have different revenue streams, but they're so married to advertising, where you're trying to almost help these folks.
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B
That's a killer. You know what I mean? If you just kind of stick with one, it's kind of like with magazines. Yeah. Newsstand sales are great, but it's a subscription strategy that really works. Yeah.
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A
What's interesting right now, who should brands be paying attention to in the food space or trends or cool creators? Like, what's going on that's kind of fun to talk about. Or interesting.
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B
I think all those things we were just talking about in terms of where they're going is really interesting. But the other thing that we're seeing is. Is kind of the rise of the human in the product itself. So basically you know, when TikTok came along during COVID and there was that opportunity to kind of see the individual in the content as opposed to just the recipe. I don't know if you remember this. For the long time, recipe content was really just like dump and mix the thing with an overhead video.
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A
Yeah, that was like that. Especially when, you know, Tasty took off on buzzfeed. It was just hands over pots and. Yeah, that whole thing. Yeah.
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B
It's so boring, right? So boring. And once people began to see that, oh, there's a person here, there's a person with kids running around in the background and a dog barking, they're going.
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A
Through what we're going through right now, or, you know, with all this.
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B
Exactly. And there. There became this sort of connection that I don't think had existed before that. And a follow meant much more than just, I'm just going to follow you for your recipe content kind of thing. And now basically, both brands and consumers are demanding that the individual be in her or his content and be a voice and be a connection and have this sort of like lively back and forth, this engagement that is so amazing when you think how that sort of kind of like friendship or connection can translate into advice and conversion. Which sounds a little different relationship.
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A
Right. Than a magazine editor.
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B
Exactly, exactly.
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A
Who's doing it? Right. Who's a good example of this that.
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B
I can't. I love everybody on the rock.
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A
You can't pick a child that you.
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B
Love more like your family. I can't pick it. I can't pick a favorite. But one of the. One of our creators who's kind of always pushing at the boundaries of where. Where content is going is Qasim Hardaway. He's so interesting. I get the pleasure of talking to him often because there's so many ideas that he has about where things are going. He. In TikTok, basically, he started in ASMR, which was fascinating. It was just like you couldn't step away from it kind of thing. But now he's in that position to realize, okay, I've got to be in this content more too. ASMR obviously had no.
- [22:34]
A
It was so removed. Yeah, right.
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B
Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of an evolution that he's also working towards, but in such creative ways. There was a recent partnership he did with Meta and their new sort of AI Glasses kind of thing, which. So he's a food creator. Right. And he's working with Meta and he's talking about AI as a wife. What is happening in this content and he's kind of doing what he does. He's basically like going to the AI and the glasses and saying, so, what should I cook for this particular event? Or something like that. And the AI pops back with a, well, I think he should do this. And it was just like, so interesting. And I think by the end of the post, basically the conclusion was, well, these classes are basically taking over my business. I can retire now.
- [23:19]
A
Right, Right. That's funny.
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B
It was just an AI experiment, but it was really interesting. And I think it kind of shows that food creators aren't just about recipe. Do you know what I mean? That they are building lifestyles themselves and really kind of understanding that that's what their audience is asking for too, which is why. Why we kind of talk about ourselves as, you know, yes, we are focused on food creators, but food is a lifestyle in and of itself, and it does involve travel, and it involves all these other things that are interesting to the larger audience and expanding the audience at the same time.
- [23:51]
A
You know, it really sounds like, given your background and your passion, you're. You live and breathe this and you're. And you're so, so it sounds. Your colleagues do. Could you. But everybody wants to know about it. Could you. Could you take this model and apply it to travel, to apply it to some other lifestyle and, you know, and turn cook it into an empire? Or is this. Is food kind of always going to be your focus?
- [24:12]
B
I think what kind of. What I was just saying is that that is organically happening to this world. Even, even when I was at Bon Appetit, there were moments like that where we really talked about ourselves as a lifestyle product and how food was always a component of it. But there was so much travel, there was so much restaurants, There were so many others.
- [24:32]
A
Yeah, they're all intertwined, but the food.
- [24:34]
B
Was kind of always the, you know, the piece that you carried with you was the lucky penny in your pocket. But it. If you know food people, and you love food people, you realize they just live in the world to go find great places to eat and to talk about and to get together and that kind of thing. And I think it. It really does apply to the way this industry is going. Like if. If it's a food creator who's, you know, sort of making something and talking to her audience at the same time. And her audience is constantly asking her, so, what's a nail polish color you're wearing? Because can I get that too? It's kind of that organic movement into. Oh, beauty might be an interesting Topic here for this, this individual to kind of explore a little bit with her audience, that the audience is always driving the car.
- [25:17]
A
So interesting.
- [25:18]
B
Yes.
- [25:18]
A
So different. Last thing, I don't want to keep you all day here, but this is terrific. What, what would you like to see in this sector? What, What? Either what are some pain points you'd like to see addressed or just what are you hopeful about maybe in the next couple of years you'd like to see come come to fruition?
- [25:33]
B
I think the pain points for me are trying to help a brand understand that they need to let the creator drive the car effectively. Effectively. That's the only way it's ever going to work. And there are so many who really feel like, but wait, I'm over here. I'm the brand. I am paying for this effectively. I want these key messages in the content and that may not, you know, really like connect with the creators sort of idea of what those key messages are. And when that happens, it's just the kind of thing where I'm pretty much in the seat of having to say, I don't think this is going to perform the way you want it to, but people want to go ahead anyway. And then do you know what I mean?
- [26:13]
A
That's where bad executions happen.
- [26:14]
B
Yeah, I told you.
- [26:16]
A
Right?
- [26:19]
B
Try not to say that out loud.
- [26:20]
A
Right, right, right.
- [26:21]
B
I also see so much opportunity for this business for all the reasons we've been talking about. And it is that kind of, are we replacing traditional talent management? What are we doing? Are we becoming that? Are we. Are we kind of moving in that direction where we also get to be a business that really facilitates all of these other opportunities. And that for me is so exciting. I'm really spending my time in that space educating our creators, really working with them hand in hand to figure out what those next opportunities are.
- [26:54]
A
You're playing so many roles that would normally in the past, in traditional models be separate entities or companies, and that's kind of cool. But how does that evolve? What does that disrupt or not disrupt? That's gonna be something fascinating to watch.
- [27:05]
B
It's going to be incredible. I can't wait to get on the. On the boat.
- [27:11]
A
All right, awesome stuff, Laura. Great, great conversation here. Let's talk again, but thanks for your time.
- [27:15]
B
Yeah, so nice to talk to you, Mike.
- [27:17]
A
A big thanks to my guest this week, Cook it founder Laurie Buckle, and of course, my partners at View Planner. If you like this show, please take a moment to rate and leave a review. We have lots more to review, so please hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time for a moment with Next in Creator Media. Thanks for listening.