Print + digital = a winning formula for Woolworths Taste

Woolworths Taste magazine, produced by New Media, continues to hold its own, with a 13% increase in circulation in 2020 Q4 over Q3 - to a final total of 27,974. The latest ABC, posted on 11 February 2021, also showed growth in paid circulation of 15% from 20,314 to 23,520. Unsurprisingly, this figure is down 7.6% year on year due to the effects of Covid-19. However, sell-through for December was higher than expected and reflected Woolworths' own results for the Christmas period.

Woolworths Taste's online performance is also unprecedented. Whereas web traffic usually declines after Christmas, Taste's audience actually grew by 5%, with 353,733 unique browsers visiting the site January. This is an increase of 95% year on year. Meanwhile, Taste's social audience continues to grow incrementally, with the total social footprint standing at 399,146 - up 37% year on year.

"The results suggest that Taste has played an important role for customers during the pandemic," says Taste editor-in-chief Kate Wilson. "As patterns of food consumption have changed, people are cooking more and, in some cases, have more time to cook. We have adapted our content strategy to offer more solutions that directly benefit the customer.

"After the hard lockdown, we saw massive spikes in traffic in April and May - Taste's unique browsers climbed to over 585,000 in April - but even after these figures normalised, and as lockdown restrictions were lifted, growth has continued at unprecedented levels. It is extremely gratifying to see our content resonating so powerfully with the audience."

Elizka Ferreira, head of foods marketing at Woolworths, adds: "Our aim is to service our customers wherever they are - be that in print, web or on social platforms. Taste is an integral part of Woolworths' strategy to reach customers through content and it is incredible to see this succeeding across all channels."