If you're a chef, restaurant owner, or simply a foodie - you may have woken up one morning to thousands of notifications to your Instagram account out of nowhere. That may have come from a foodie page based in San Francisco named ChannelFoods (instagram.com/user/channelfoods).
Unlike other pages that charge hefty prices for promotions, ChannelFoods has been disrupting the market by providing free exposure to talented chefs and restaurants. When asked why? A representative from Blackcard Media, the company that owns ChannelFoods, had this to say:
"There are countless beautiful videos posted on Instagram from Chefs and small businesses such as food stands, food trucks, pop-up shops, and restaurants. Some of these videos are so good and we feel why not show it to the world? So we post videos we find that meet the ChannelFoods brand aesthetic and upload it for free. The countless compliments and appreciation we have gotten from business owners and chefs is priceless. We really are helping these businesses flourish and for us it costs nothing. It's literally minimal effort on our end".
But Blackcard assures that they don't plan on running free ads forever, but rather its also a strategic philosophical decision to make noise in the industry. "We know what we're doing, and we definitely plan on monetization in the near future, but that will be with our own content and not that of others. Gratitude is a quality that reflects from our brand and that will never cease, even when we do monetize. We will always find ways to give back".