Shoppers can now order ingredients for New York Times Cooking recipes thanks to a new two-year partnership with grocery delivery platform Instacart, the companies announced today. While the integration should lead to more purchases through Instacart, the publisher gets access to audiences through the commerce platform.
A handful of recipes are available in the Instacart application and on its website, letting foodies order the ingredients from a local grocer for same-day pickup. On the NYT Cooking website, people can add the ingredients for any recipe to an Instacart order. Later this summer, that capability will also roll out on the NYT Cooking app.
“We’re really excited to be teaming up with Instacart for this first-of-its-kind collaboration to make it easier not only for people to discover and be inspired by New York Times Cooking, but to actually shop and move toward action,” Joy Robins, global chief advertising officer at The New York Times Co., told ADWEEK.
Content and commerce converge
While the initial collaboration is fairly modest—only a few recipes are available on Instacart, and there is no data sharing deal and no new ad formats related to the recipes—it’s an example of a retailer-digital publisher partnership that analyst Andrew Lipsman predicts will define the next era of retail media.
“[The NYT Cooking and Instacart deal is] one of the best examples I can think of in terms of the convergence of content and commerce,” Lipsman said.
“There will be … deeper partnerships, integrations, maybe even some M&A (mergers and acquisitions),” Lipsman said. “But in terms of the broader trend of media companies partnering with retailers and RMNs (retail media networks) around content adjacencies, this is an almost perfect example.”
The New York Times declined to share the financial terms of the deal.
