Broadsheet and Honda’s ‘Seven Dinners in Seven Nights’ partnership is a masterclass in leveraging networks, building experiences into branding, and developing rich content.

This article originally appeared in The Serve Issue, our February/March 2017 issue of Marketing magazine.

 

Background

Broadsheet’s branded content studio developed a campaign that offers Broadsheet’s dining-obsessed audience seven dinners in seven nights at premium restaurants that are often booked out months in advance. The winner and their three dining companions were chauffeur-driven in a Honda HR-V to and from the restaurants each night.

As the essential city guide in Australia, Broadsheet leveraged its strong relationships with its network of restaurants and bars to create a money-can’t-buy experience for readers. This year the competition was bigger and more successful than its first iteration in 2014, expanding the competition from Melbourne and Sydney to also include Brisbane and Perth, with the help of Honda HR-V.

Broadsheet proudly partnered with Honda on this exciting campaign and communicated the Honda HR-V as the perfect vehicle to go on food adventures in your city.

 

 

Objectives

Honda:

• Drive an uplift in salience for the HR-V throughout the target demographic,
• build awareness of the HR-V with those out of market,
• build consideration of the HR-V with those in market,
• position the Honda HR-V as a means to exploring and uncovering the unknown parts of your city – the accomplice to your foodie adventures, and
• speak to an engaged and inspired audience through Broadsheet’s network.

 

Broadsheet:

• Reward readers with a money-can’t-buy experience,
• deliver strong competition results and achieve the Honda HR-V campaign KPIs,
• continue to grow Broadsheet as the essential guide to city culture in new markets Brisbane and Perth,
• continue to offer readers in Melbourne and Sydney unique experiences and the chance to dine at leading establishments,
• achieve more than 40,000 entries across the competition, and
• drive newsletter subscriptions in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

 

Strategy

Broadsheet covers the best of city culture across food and drink, fashion, art and design, entertainment, travel, and active lifestyles in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. The highest level of traffic to Broadsheet comes through food-and-drink related content. To capitalise on the audience’s thirst for dining content, Broadsheet aligned the HR-V with ‘Seven Dinners in Seven Nights’ to provide Honda with an opportunity to help the audience uncover the best of the city’s dining experiences.

Through content to promote the competition, it positioned the Honda HR-V as the perfect partner to explore the best dining destinations around town. Broadsheet saw Honda as the perfect partner for ‘Seven Dinners in Seven Nights’.

The competition is an avenue for Broadsheet to grow newsletter subscriptions and reward its audience with an amazing prize that makes best use of our premium hospitality connections. Partnering with Honda on this campaign was a perfect fit and allowed Broadsheet to demonstrate the Honda HR-V positioning within the campaign content and wider campaign collateral.

The partnership with 28 restaurants in four cities across Australia enabled the Honda HR-V to be aligned with the most current and trending dining experiences in this country.

In addition to the competition, Broadsheet explored and uncovered the lesser-known parts of our cities, through its ‘Uncharted Menu Territory’ series. Broadsheet took the Honda HR-V to one largely unknown restaurant located outside of the city in each state to demonstrate that a world of discovery awaits inquisitive diners and drivers. This content aligned the Honda HR-V with a spirit of exploration and food-related adventures.

 

Execution

To maximise investment in the ‘Seven Dinners in Seven Nights’ competition and ensure that the maximum number of competition entries was received across the network, Broadsheet created the following marketing and content strategy.

Content

• Four competitions (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth) with custom design assets,
• four dedicated competition hubs in each city,
• 12 content pieces integrating the Honda HR-V in photography, published and promoted on Broadsheet,
• four solus eDMs (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth databases),
• multiple Broadsheet eDM inclusions (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth), and
• creative co-branded display assets and homepage takeover in each city (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth).

Social media

• Extensive social promotion to a national audience of more than one million including 32 Instagram assets, more than 25 Facebook posts and Instagram story coverage during the winners’ dinners,
• influencer engagement strategy, and
• coverage across Honda’s social media channels.

 

Results

Showcasing Broadsheet’s extensive dining connections throughout Australia, the competition was extremely successful in compelling audiences in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth to enter, driving database subscriptions for Broadsheet and Honda.

Charting the rise in competition entries from the original 2014 competition to 2017, there was a 76% increase in Melbourne entries and a 119% increase in Sydney entries. For first-time cities Brisbane and Perth, the strong entry numbers demonstrated the appetite for food and beverage content and connections in both locations, as well as Broadsheet’s growing audience.

This means the KPI of 40,000 entries set for the 2017 competition was not only met but greatly surpassed, giving Broadsheet the impetus to grow future collaborative competitions even further in the coming years. More than half the people who entered also opted in to receive emails from Honda.

From a partnership perspective, Honda was able to successfully tap into the key audience of explorers and foodies in each city reaching more than 660,000 people via social media and driving more than 78,000 uniques on Broadsheet. The average time spent on Honda content on the Broadsheet site was over three minutes, showing that this competition and the content that supported it was useful and engaging. This campaign was promoted organically via Broadsheet’s social media channels – there were no paid or boosted posts.

Broadsheet positioned the HR-V as a vehicle for dining adventures and discoveries. Broadsheet Studio created interesting and design-led content for both Broadsheet and Honda’s channels.

 

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Image credits: Cutler & Co feature by Jake Roden. Octopus at Osteria by Gareth Sobey. Honda at Spirit House by Kirsty Sycz.