DiningForBrussels
L'Echo & De Tijd
Issue 40 | September 2016
Agency
Famous Brussels
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: Katrien Bottez Creative Director: Iwein Vandevyver, Laurent Dochy Creative Team: Manon Penné, Vivienne Mak Copywriting: Anne-Cécile Collignon, Luc Libens, Marc Fauconnier
Production Team
Project Leader: Katrien Crabbe Business Director: Janpieter Mels Digital Project Manager: Géraldine Poncelet Development: David Viaene Design: Laurens Groven Conversation Manager: Jonas Sprengers Producer: Loes Fierens DTP: Emilie Boudart, Herman Mercelis PR: Liesbeth Pyck, Liedewij Verbiest, Anne-Cécile Collignon, Natacha Nève de Mévergnies
Other Credits
Client: Mediafin (De Tijd / L'Echo) Client contacts: Katleen Mertens, Frederik Delaplace
Date
April 2016
Background
Brussels is still recovering from the terrorist attacks of March 22nd. Terror threat level went up; the moral went down. The international press called Belgium a 'failed state'. Tourists stayed away, and Belgians chose to avoid their infamous capital. One month later, the impact on Brussels' economy was enormous and especially the restaurant industry was heavily impacted. In April 2016 the number of bankruptcies increased from 40 (April 2015) to 600 (April 2016) and 50% of the Brussels' restaurants are facing serious financial problems. As leading business newspapers, De Tijd and L'Echo wanted to create awareness & engage people to support the Brussels economy.
Idea
Belgians are famous for their dining culture. They are happy to live in a country where food is truly important. To prove that no one will ever be able to change this, even when they are still living the strong post attack emotions, Brussels based business newspapers De Tijd and L'Echo called out to all Belgians to come and dine in one of Brussels' 12.000 restaurants and share their support to the industry. Sharing support was very easy: after finishing a meal in a Brussels' restaurant, people made a peace-symbol on their plate with cutlery, tagged the restaurant of their choice & then shared the picture with hashtag #DiningForBrussels. So everybody became an ambassador and a real-time solution for the problem. Using social media, the place to be for restaurant inspiration & sharing the favourite whereabouts, was a direct way to inspire people with the message: the absolute necessity to go dine in Brussels. Belgian social feeds were not showing pretty food pictures as usual but a bold statement about the importance of continuing to go out and dine these days. Fighting terror and economic downturn the Belgian way, became a fight without prayers or big words, but with knife and fork.
Results
The campaign directly encouraged a massive number of Belgians to go dining in Brussels. By using the hashtag, they created awareness for the suffering restaurant industry. The campaign became nr 1 trending topic within the hour after the launch. On day one, it reached 1 out of 3 Belgians via social media and over 500 influencers changed their behaviour and shared their pictures. The PR media value reached 734.865 euros which is bigger than the annual media budget of both news brands. Famous people and restaurant ambassadors talked about the problem in other media. #DiningForBrussels was used as an example to launch other initiatives to boost the economy. It was the starter of many discussions and opinion programs on radio and television. Also politicians showed their support. The government increased the financial support for the suffering restaurant industry with 60 million euros.