Belgians are famous for their dining culture. We 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 we were still living the strong post attack emotions, we called out to all Belgians to come and dine in one of Brussels’ 12.000 restaurants and share their support. Fighting terror and economic downturn the Belgian way, became a fight without prayers or big words, but with knife and fork.
We turned around the idea of foodstagram: instead of taking a picture of your mouth-watering food, we asked people to share a picture of their empty plate, with a peace-symbol made out of cutlery. And share it on social media with #DiningForBrussels.
Belgian social feeds were not showing pretty pictures but a bold statement about the importance of continuing to go out and dine these days.
Execution
The campaign was kicked off by a newspaper ad and got amplified by the Belgian social media community. Their pictures of empty plates became trending topic the very moment our newspaper ad was published – and one week after the launch, they still were.
TIMELINE:
Tuesday 26th of May (1 month after the attacks) = editorial news about the fast declining Brussels’ restaurant industry.
Wednesday 27th of May
- Newspaper ad with call to action to participate in our campaign #DiningForBrussels
- Kick-off campaign on social media by the editors in chief & journalists
- PR push of all communication in 1-on-1 pitching to key journalists of competitive media and Belgian influencers and foodbloggers.
June, Summer 2016: Support came from different angles: competitive news brands, politicians, famous restaurant owners, national and international brands as Eurostar & Uber, Brussels lovers and foodies from all over the country.
Our campaign became nr 1 trending topic within the hour after the launch. On day one, we reached 1 out of 3 Belgians via social media. More than 6600 messages including #DiningForBrussels were posted on social media, with more than 1200 shared pictures. Total reach > 6.8 million.
The media value of our PR impact was 734.865€ & bigger than the annual media budget of both news brands. Famous Belgians and restaurant ambassadors were invited to talk about the problem in other media. It was the start of many discussions and opinion programs on radio and television. While a lot of people were talking about the suicide bomber that got arrested even more people were talking about #DiningForBrussels.
#DiningForBrussels was used as an example to launch other initiatives to boost the economy. And also politicians showed their support. The government increased their support for the restaurant industry with 60 million€.
The Situation
One month after the terrorist attacks, Brussels based newspapers De Tijd & L’Echo created the positive movement #DiningForBrussels to support Brussels’ restaurants. This initiative got picked up by the entire country within hours. It was the starter of many discussions and opinion programs on radio and television. The campaign created awareness for the suffering restaurant industry and encouraged a massive number of Belgians to go dining in Brussels (behavioural change). Which inspired others to follow (social media). Even the government increased the financial support for the restaurant industry with 60 million€. Our campaign helped rebuilding Brussels’ image nationally and abroad.
The Strategy
De Tijd and L’Echo kicked off with a dedicated editorial and ad in their newspapers and launched the campaign through their own social media. De Tijd & L’Echo readers’ communities were our primary target. But as we wanted our campaign to spread as wide as possible (touch potential local restaurant visitors), we focused on national press media and pitched the story personally to key journalists. It was the start of many discussions on radio and television. Even competing newspapers, who are normally not so eager to support us, talked about the action.
Simultaneously we started a bottom-up movement: we contacted Belgian bloggers and influencers to inspire others. A press kit (press release, keyvisuals and even a poster that restaurant holders could use to show their support) was available on our website. We’ve also sent an email to politicians & business people to motivate them to go dining for Brussels