FastGoodCuisine has become one of the biggest food and challenge channels in the French-speaking world, with 8.49 million subscribers and more than 3 billion views. Its videos are ambitious productions, giant builds and large-scale challenges that can take months to plan. Behind the channel’s recent run of viral hits is ideation work from Upload Strategy and its co-founder, Gabriel Leblanc-Picard. We sat down with him to talk about ideas, titles, and what it really takes to make food content people cannot scroll past.
Q: How did the work with FastGoodCuisine come about?
A: The channel had a large, loyal audience but had hit a plateau, and they wanted ideas that would break out to new viewers. That is exactly what we do, so it was a natural fit.
Q: For someone outside the industry, what does your team actually do for a channel like this?
A: Two things, really. We come up with the ideas for the videos, and we handle what we call the packaging, which is just the title and the thumbnail, the first thing a viewer sees. On a channel like FastGoodCuisine, where one video can take months to build, picking the right idea before anyone starts filming is everything. A brilliant video with the wrong idea behind it still fails.
Q: Which videos are you most proud of?
A: Survive World’s Spiciest Peppers, Win $10,000 became the most-viewed video on the channel this year, at 8.2 million views. Last Duo To Leave The Table Wins $10,000 did 4.9 million, and I Tested The Limits of Restaurants reached 3.3 million.
Q: What is the biggest misconception about what you do?
A: That it is about being creative in some vague, artistic way. It is not. It is a discipline. Most of my day is spent killing ideas that are not good enough, not necessarily inventing new ones. Saying no to a decent idea so a great one can get made is most of the job.
Q: How do you know an idea will work before you have filmed anything?
A: You never know for certain, but you can stack the odds. We test titles and thumbnails against each other, we look at how similar ideas have performed, and we are honest about whether the premise can be understood in a single second. If it cannot, it does not matter how good the video turns out to be.
Q: What actually makes a food video go viral?
A: I’d say this applies to most niches but it has to promise something the viewer can’t resist, and then actually deliver it. The packaging makes the promise; the video has to keep it. Break that trust once and they’ll stop clicking on your videos.
Q: What’s next for the channel?
A: Bigger and better ideas. The audience keeps telling us they want more ambition, so that is what we give them. My job is to make sure every one of them still earns the click.
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