Mass Marketing of Celebrity Chefs and Cooking Reality Shows
Introduction
A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become famous and well known. Today celebrity chefs often become celebrities by presenting cooking advice and demonstrations via mass media, especially television (Wikipedia, 2011). Chefs and cooks are always in demand all over the world. They are responsible for menu planning, prepping food, cooking and presenting attractive meals. Cooks become chefs after many years of training. Receiving a formal culinary education, can help speed up the process. This prevents development of bad habits and learning proper techniques from the start. It also teaches time management and efficiency in working and meal planning. These traits are critical to maintain high quality service and food without too much time. While the job can be glamorous, chefs are not afraid to get down and dirty. Once a chef reaches the position of executive chef, they usually stay out of the kitchen and take on menu planning and running of the restaurant. An executive chef makes about $59,000 a year, but can earn a six figure income depending on a restaurants success (Top Culinary Arts Schools and Online Training Programs, 2011). Many chefs also act as consultants to magazines, TV Shows and other programs across the nation. The job can be very rewarding when a restaurant, catering service or bakery receives an excellent review in a newspaper, magazine, or star ranking. With the popularity of the culinary field growing, due to reality TV Shows and food related programming, there will be no shortage for the need for talent in the future.
History of Cooking and Reality Shows
Among the many reality shows over the past decade, reality cooking and chef shows have been the best sellers. However, people have forgotten that cooking shows are among the “ORIGINAL” reality TV. From the times of Julia Child, reality chefs have been in front of the camera creating dishes for people to watch. So, what has changed for reality chefs and cooking programs over the years? The first cooking shows were run on network TV, in the 1960’s, to promote specific foods or cooking products to a female audience. These shows were shown during the day when housewives were home and the chef demonstrated actual cooking techniques. They were referred to as “dump and stir” shows (James, 2009). Most of the time, the ingredients and/or cookwares were primary sponsors of the show. These shows were inexpensive to produce and could be called just cooking shows which were very profitable. These shows were relegated to the realm of educational or “public” television. Then in 1993, everybody thought the people behind the “TV Network” had lost their minds and dedicated a cable network to nothing but food and cooking. Who would watch that? Part of the reason for their success was a change in focus. The programming about food philosophy changed. Not everybody cooks, but everybody eats. As a result, “reality” shows, focused to food were born.
So why are these shows so popular? It is because they have borrowed major elements from America’s latest TV fad: reality. The producers have taken ingredients from all these shows and blended them into a recipe for success. Famous people, flashy, charismatic people: high tech settings or exotic locations; drama, comedy and mostly competitions in a so called, “Kitchen Stadium” set-up, make for exciting viewing. Cooking has become a spectator sport. It is fun to watch and we get some good ideas about plating and presentation. Shows have moved from educational to entertaining.

In past years, many of the hosts of TV’s top chefs and reality cooking show hosts have become celebrities in their own right. Over time, some chefs have become, what is called, “Celebrity Chefs”. Once a chef gets to this level, money follows. The top five “Celebrity Chefs” and there earnings are: Rachael Ray ($18 million/ Year), Wolfgang Puck (16 million/year), Alain Ducasse (5 million /year), Paula Deen ($4.5 million/ year, Mario Batali (3 million/ year). After a chef becomes a celebrity, usually follows publicity. They may have their own cookbook, pot wear; food products created, or even have their own “Reality Show”. The top five cooking “Reality Shows” are: Top Chef, Iron Chef America, Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Chefs vs. City, and Dinner Impossible (Top Cooking Reality Shows, 2011). The “Celebrity Chefs” inspire the viewers to watch these programs as a form of entertainment.
Mass Marketing of Celebrity Chefs
Each “Celebrity Chef” has a history in how they were publicized. Listed are the top five chefs and their history of mass media in entertainment marketing.
Rachel Ray is a jaunty chef, who went from small-time cable Stardom to Oprah success. She began working with audiences with catch phrases like “Yum-O” on her first Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals, in 2001. Today she has four Food Network programs, including Tasty Travels and $40 a Day. She is averaging 2.6 million viewers this season, and her Every Day Show with Rachel Ray magazine has accumulated 1.5 million readers. She endorses Dunkin Donuts too. Forget about weapons of mass destruction, the terrorist have a new weapon donut and coffee, and Rachel Ray is leading the attack (Vorasarun, 2008).
Wolfgang Puck is an Austrian-born celebrity. He got his start in the ritzy Los Angeles Restaurant Spago in 1982. Some of his patrons were Orson Welles, Sidney Poitier, Brad Pitt, and Jamie Foxx. He owns 15 fine dining brand restaurants, including Chinois. He sells sandwiches to weary travelers at airports at Wolfgang Express. He has bistros in Suburbia and sells soups in the grocery aisles and cutlery on the Home Shopping Network. He uses veal and foie gras as his main ingredient.
Alain Ducasse is a French Chef and owns 22 restaurants from Tokyo to Paris. His first New York hotspot was in 2006. Critics said the food was too fussy, but then opened two new spots this year that were more impressive to the critics.
Paula Deen is the Queen of Southern cuisine who serves up her butter drenched recipes with motherly charm. On two Food Network shows. Her audience laps it up. Her cookbooks, memoirs, and magazine are best sellers. Her style of cooking started as “comfort food” which can be thought of as a direct result of America’s obsession with food (Hodges, 2009). When a problem presents itself to individuals, such as sorrow or stress, the solution has been to drown it in food.
Mario Batali is a culinary school dropout and is now a master of Italian cuisine. He owns 13 restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Reservations at his hot spots Babbo and Del Posto are especially hard to get.

Top Cooking Best Reality Shows
Good Eats- On it, Alton Brown shows us that anyone can cook in the kitchen. He adds his own twist using science and chemistry. He is a down to earth guy who can bring culinary arts to regular people. Sometimes after watching shows we are not certain that we can still make a dish. His episodes are the opposite. He inspires the inner chef in all of us.
Dinner Impossible-Robert Irvine is a rough tough chef (I personally had the opportunity to work with him at Bally’s In a Atlantic City). He is given a task usually to cook for over 200 people in a limited amount of time. There is an unusual twist usually. For example, he had to make a whole meal using candy in each dish or creating dishes that could be described as a word puzzle. (i.e.: “On a shoestring” potatoes or “Heart of gold,” which was pastry made with golden delicious apples wrapped in gold leaf) (Morris, 2009).
Iron Chef America- This is one of the most popular shows on the Food Network. We have a group of celebrity chef or iron chefs. These experts are called upon to compete against a challenger in The Kitchen stadium. Then, the iron chef and the challenger have one hour to create 5 dishes with a secret ingredient, which is revealed to them at the start of the program. Then the 5 dishes are judged on taste, plating, (how nice it looks on a plate), and the judges vote to see the winner.
Chopped-This show is also a competition. The prize is bragging rights and $10,000. This can be very useful to a new chef just starting a new restaurant or trying to move forward. The competition consists of 3 dishes to be made: appetizer, entrée, and desert. Four chefs begin the contest and one is eliminated. This continues till one chef remains as the winner. The rest are chopped from the scene. The last chef is crowned as the crowned “Chopped Champion”. It is amusing when the chopped chefs whine about being let go. Sometimes the judges are quite critical. This makes it more enjoyable for the viewer. I enjoy watching these chefs try to blend some crazy ingredient into one dish, and some get quite creative. It is fascinating to see who wins.
The Next Food Network Star- These shows are very interesting to me. I love to watch competitions and who can be creative in different situations. It is really fun watching someone gain a chance to fulfill a passion to get that job perfectly done. That is the basis for this show. Each week competitions weed out the chef who does not quite cut it. This continues each week till a winner is found. This is the next Food Network Star.
Overall impact of TV programming is people love to watch etc. but rather open a can or box or pop frozen into the microwave. This is mostly entertainment. It appeals to the senses of the audience and is an integral factor in the great success of these shows.
Branded Television
Branded television shows play a big role in the success of many other chefs in various medias. (DVD tapes, the food radio shows, magazines, cookbooks cookware products, boutique and culinary gifts, signature foods, kitchen designs, food venues shows, clothing designs, custom appliances, commemorative journals, named restaurants, culinary cruises, culinary schools, cooking classes, book signings, competitions, etc.
Mass Marketing International Venues
Mass Marketing International Venues have been popular. Marketers use food as a: tool, a reward or giveaway, to attract people to different venues around the world. For example, in 2009, the most famous souvenir on cruises was the Tortuga Rum Cake; in 2010, the International Home Housewares Show offered cooking demos and a chance to meet celebrity chefs; in 2011, the International Culinary Competition was in Vancouver and gave a Food Festival for the people who attended. The gift is what attracts the people to attend these venues, plus the venue itself.
Other Venues of Mass Marketing toward Celebrity Chefs
Cooking for schools-Children are being taught in schools basic subjects but have a need for real-life skills, which they could begin applying inside and outside school premises. Cooking is an extracurricular activity that not only teaches children an essential life skill but also promotes healthy social interaction and self-esteem. College recruiters are using these venues as an opportunity for education. The media is used to make young students aware of these programs.
Cooking Clubs- whether in a school or in a community, is a great way to teach kids about different cuisines and to hold their interest in cooking. These clubs can be used to teach healthy eating habits which include reducing the intake of junk foods and fried foods. The easiest way to encourage a healthy lifestyle is to help them understand the basics of nutritious cooking and eating through practice and reinforcement. Mrs. Obama has used her position to fund this cause thru TV, and school campaigns.
Holistic School Learning- Schools can hold cooking classes to teach a new generation that cooking does exist. Parents are encouraged to come to the schools to share homemade recipes. They learn important concepts in science and chemistry. And competitive group-building exercises. It is important for children to see that men can cook as well as females. Many cooking media show are also starring the male gender.
Interactive Learning- to make sure cooking is not a chore for kids; schools are introducing it as an art form. It should be fun a challenging. Even young children in preschool are given active participation. Such lessons teach interaction cooperation and working as a team. Early easy cookbooks are used to share ideas in different cuisines (Kidwai, 2011).
Cooking Shows: Media Appeal Takes a Negative Turn and Celebrity Chefs
The idea for the Food Network was developed in 1991 by Joe Langhan. This network has seen 85 million households all around the world. The draw to this network is the wide array of celebrity chefs. The appeal of these cooks has increased the audience of The Food Network, thus hooking individuals on food as a hobby. Instead of associating food with survival or as a necessity. It has been acceptable to associate food with pleasure which to an extent, can be tied to problems with health, including being overweight.
The television industry and cooking shows should by no means be completely condemned. Their message seems to be sending that it is ok to eat as a hobby and disregard health warnings. Audiences are appearing ignorant to the advances of the food industry. They are constantly bombarded with images of sexuality, homey-ness, and the appeal of enthusiasm (Morris, 2009). While there is no scientific link between the rise in obesity and the rising popularity in cooking shows in the last 20 years, there is some sort of connection in the minds of TV watchers for a complete disregard for health and well-being (Kolata, 2007). People are idolizing these celebrity chefs thru the media and are attempting to mimic the appeal to others in the form of food. Food has now become a hobby not sustenance.
Is Food TV On the Way Out?
After gorging on cooking shows with their celebrity media, on a 24 hour cable network, it appears viewers have had a fill in the New York Post (Atkinson, 2011). There are troubling signs that their core female viewers are looking elsewhere for entertaining fare. After years of growth, ratings have fallen off at the end of last year. Part of the challenge is the shift in tastes for edgier culinary “reality” competition shows.
Conclusion: Life after Reality Shows
Reality television shows give ordinary people the chance to experience a taste of life as a celebrity in all forms of media. But what happens when the cameras stop rolling or recording? Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Reality TV is just a way of getting there... All of the attention that comes with being on a reality show takes a psychological toll on a person. It changes you in some way. “You have to stay who you are. It’s a hard fight. That’s when all of a sudden you are in a different light. One needs thick skin. “Reality TV gives people a chance” “What they do with that chance is another issue entirely” (Life after Reality Shows, 2011). It is best for people to have fun during the time they are a star and then be able to return to their normal lives. Fame from reality shows is generally short lived. Some try to ride the wave in the media as long as they can. You have to move on with your life and leave reality TV in the past, and think about the future. It can be a fun ride.
Works Cited
Life after Reality Shows. (2011, Jan 5). Retrieved from Ai InSite: http://insite.artinstitues.edu/life-after-reality-shows-30703.aspx
Top Cooking Reality Shows. (2011, June 14). Retrieved from Reality Shows.com: http://www.realityshows.com/articles/top_cooking_reality_shows.html
Top Culinary Arts Schools and Online Training Programs. (2011, June 21). Retrieved from universities and colleges.org: http://www.universitiesandcolleges.org/culinary/ Wikipedia. (2011, June 12). Retrieved 2011, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_chef
Atkinson, C. (2011, Jan 20). Food TV on the Way Out? Retrieved from My Fox Boston: http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/offbeat/food-tv-on-the-way-out-25-ncx-20110120
Kidwai, M. (2011, June 21). Ideas for Cooking for School. Retrieved from ehow: http://www.ehow.com/list-6404656-ideas-cooking-school.html
Kolata, G. B. (2007). Obesity: a Growing Problem.
Morris, C. (2009, Dec 11). 5 Top Cooking Reality Shows on Television. Retrieved from Associated Content from Yahoo!: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2479570/5_top_cooking_reality_shows_on_television.html?cat=2
Vorasarun, C. (2008). Ten Top-Earning Celebrity Chefs. Forbes, 1.