Honda’s newest campaign sees the auto manufacturer sponsoring BuzzFeed videos featuring game-day recipes and a direct link to purchase the ingredients from Amazon.

The three-way partnership between Honda, Amazon and BuzzFeed is called The Upgrade and offers customers a quick and easy way to both purchase ingredients and learn how to use them. The move sees Honda attempting to expand its marketing tactics by cashing in on Buzzfeed’s popular social video content.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Honda and Amazon to bring the power of these great brands to our highly engaged Tasty audience,” said Lee Brown, chief revenue officer at BuzzFeed. “BuzzFeed and Tasty alike are all about bringing people together and creating a human connection, and we love when we can seamlessly integrate partners to bring Tasty further to life while also meeting our marketing partners’ needs.”

“Plus, for the first time ever, thanks to Honda the ingredients for the exclusive Tasty recipes can be delivered to consumers via Amazon Prime,” he said.

Game day recipes
Buzzfeed’s particular brand of video recipe content has been an absolute hit since it debuted a year ago.

Tasty, the media company’s video channel devoted to those iconic, top-down, sped-up recipes, has been a cash cow for BuzzFeed since its debut.

The videos routinely see extremely high view counts on social media and YouTube, and brands have been lapping up the rewards.

BuzzFeed has had many brand partnerships for its Tasty videos and the results have been encouraging.

Now Honda is getting in on the action with its newest campaign seeing it sponsor game day recipes on BuzzFeed’s Tasty video channel.

The campaign is called The Upgrade and emphasizes party food that can be served during a football game – for example, the upcoming Super Bowl.

Furthermore, Honda has also called in Amazon to help make the campaign even more impactful.

Now, when customers view a video recipe either on YouTube or on BuzzFeed’s social media channels, a link beneath the video will take them to a unique Amazon landing page where they can purchase the ingredients used in the video.

The Upgrade
At the moment, the campaign is planned to lead up to the Super Bowl, but this partnership extends beyond this one event.

Honda, Amazon and BuzzFeed will bring back The Upgrade for Valentine’s Day and, if it continues to be a success, possibly for future events as well.

Honda has upped its mobile game in general recently, having tested in-car mobile payments earlier this year (see story).

BuzzFeed has also remained committed to its video content, seeing massive numbers during the 2017 inauguration ceremony (see story).

The campaign makes use of each company’s strengths. Honda provides the branded sponsorship, BuzzFeed applies its unique creative content and Amazon makes it actionable by delivering the products to customers.

As cross-pollination between brands, media company’s, retailers and marketers continues, expect more eclectic campaigns such as this to pop-up – especially when they take advantage of the unique strengths of all the entities involved.

“We’re delighted to join Honda and BuzzFeed in helping customers easily ‘Upgrade’ their game day experience – enabling them to watch a new and exclusive Tasty video recipe on Amazon, click through to buy the exact ingredients on Prime Now, and have them on their doorstep with free, one-hour delivery from January 30 through February 5,” said Jeremi Gorman, head of North American advertising sales for Amazon Media Group. “It doesn’t matter who’s playing this Sunday – when we can work with brands to create seamless experiences like this, customers always win!”