Why Is Every Food Article a Product Review Now?
An e-commerce writer explains the game.
It’s a Tuesday night, and you’re trying out a new pasta recipe. As you’re assessing your first step, you notice a carousel declaring the cookware and kitchen gadgets you need to make this dish — an All-Clad stainless steel pot and skillet, an Oxo slotted spoon, a Microplane, and a Mac chef’s knife. You hopelessly gaze at your generic equipment, and the nondescript pot and pan you’ve owned since college, and ask yourself: Are the state-of-the-art cookware and tools really necessary for this recipe?
The truth is, you probably don’t need that $130 All-Clad pan. Nor do you need the latest air fryer model with all its extra presets or the fancy new personal blender from that buzzy direct-to-consumer brand with the pretty colorways. “Since when did everything become an opportunity to hock some new product?” you wonder.
Welcome to commerce content (more colloquially known by non-media folk as shopping content). It’s a major revenue-generating venture that’s slowly seeped into the editorial framework of all your favorite magazines and serves as modern media’s answer to the problem of dwindling subscriptions.
