Introducing a case study for Newport Beach & Company’s first-ever Newport Beach Restaurant Month Eat Drink Win, an innovative and incentive-based program that drove thousands of Golden State diners to local restaurants, unlocked valuable data and generated record-breaking engagement and results using Bandwango’s platform.
“The purpose of our first-ever Newport Beach Restaurant Month was to drive consumers to our restaurants to help our small businesses recover from the economic devastation of the pandemic,” Doug McClain, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Newport Beach & Company said. “Using Bandwango’s platform, we were able to track and present precise data to our stakeholders which shows value and real dollars that were directly generated from our marketing efforts.”
Take an inside look at this month-long culinary program that brought business back to local restaurants to aid in COVID-19 recovery.
As virtually all businesses, industries and public life were and continue to be affected during this challenging time, the California restaurant and tourism industry was among the first to evaporate.
During the spring and summer, mandates on restaurant operation were changing frequently and in-room dining was ordered to shut down service twice. Several restaurants quickly pivoted to curbside pick-up, delivery or take-out only to stay afloat, other restauranteurs experienced losses over profits and shuttered all together.
Tourism in the City of Newport Beach is one of top three economic drivers and its 450+ dining establishments are critical to a thriving tourism industry. Newport Beach & Company is the destination’s marketing agency and umbrella organization for five community-based marketing business units including Dine Newport Beach, which is the partnership between the Newport Beach Restaurant Association (NBRA) and Newport Beach & Company.
Overseeing the year-round programming for Dine Newport Beach, the Newport Beach & Company team quickly planned and executed an engaging and successful month-long culinary program: Newport Beach Restaurant Month Eat, Drink, Win to help save restaurants in the community.
*Timeline sourced from CalMatters
From take-away meal kits and grocery boxes to owners doing home deliveries and building expansive outdoor dining rooms, the priorities were on safety, guests, their staff and staying open.
With that in mind, the NBRA still requested a program to bring diners to restaurants. Resounding feedback from restauranteurs echoed that a “normal” restaurant week-style program, while much desired to attract customers, was simply not in the cards. The restaurants simply did not have the bandwidth nor financial means to create new prix fixe menus that are standard to restaurant week events. Plus, a one- or two-week campaign was deemed too short under these circumstances and the team was advised that there needed to be no participation fee to join.
Partnering with Bandwango, Newport Beach & Company inked a contract on July 17, 2020 with the goal of creating a Restaurant Month Dine Pass in September and Newport Beach Restaurant Month Eat, Drink, Win was soon launched.
Newport Beach Restaurant Month Eat, Drink, Win was designed to physically bring diners to participating restaurant locations using the Dine Pass to check-in and win. With each check-in using the Dine Pass, diners were automatically entered to win a daily restaurant gift card and weekly grand prize getaways! Newport Beach & Company engaged nearly 70 restaurants to sign up.
Each restauranteur had three choices to participate in the complimentary program:
A three-tier system enabled partners to choose what would work best for their business.
Using Bandwango’s geo-fencing technology, diners could not check-in without actually being at the restaurant. That means that each check-in shows reliable and real consumer spending that was earned directly from the campaign. Newport Beach & Company was able to present precise, valuable insights and results for stakeholders.
The Newport Beach & Company team signed up 70 restaurant partners and rallied the entire hospitality community. The weekly grand prize giveaways provided a spotlight for all hospitality businesses beyond dining: hotels and resorts, shopping, recreational partners such as boating, standup paddle boarding and biking operators.
With the program infrastructure in place, would the team entice the public to actually sign up and use the Dine Pass?
To generate buzz in the community, the Newport Beach & Company team planned to host a virtual media event. However, the team thought outside-the-box and planned a safe and memorable in-person event instead: The Drive in and Dine Newport Beach Restaurant Month media event.
Held on Aug. 27 at the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort & Marina, 90 media, civic and hospitality leaders and foodies were greeted by a red carpet rolled out for their cars. At the drive-in check-in location, guests were given a sealed culinary gift box with their own Dine Newport Beach-branded placemat, silverware, napkins, beverages and collateral to ensure a no touch and safe dining experience. Parking attendants lined the cars in front of a stage and screen and were instructed to tune-in using their radios. As guests stayed in their cars, an entertaining program was in store: series of speakers, live Q&A with chefs, while roller-skating servers (in PPE) delivered a three-course tasting from six local restaurants to attendees. For each participating restaurant, the team created six expertly filmed mini “Chef’s Table” inspired videos to share the heartfelt back stories of each restaurant and were then aired during their corresponding tasting times. The evening ended with skaters putting on a surprise flash mob dance to top off the experience. The entire night was touchless at every point of the evening as safety was the number one priority.
The out-of-the box creative and fun event was deemed a resounding success by attendees, restauranteurs and community and earned over 150+ tags on Instagram that evening.
The digital campaign hinged on the execution of a successful social media blitz. The team developed and distributed a variety of new content for social media including 10 expertly made videos and 30 new images for the 30 restaurants that gave gift cards. In addition, all hospitality businesses that contributed hotel stays, shopping and recreational excursions were included in posts to tease the upcoming weekly grand prize giveaway. Last, the six “Chef’s Table” inspired restaurant videos from the media event were rolled out during restaurant month as well.
he Newport Beach & Company team actively engaged media to promote Restaurant Month in advance and secured coverage all month long. Between the media event and pitching, outreach earned 56 placements and more than 43,908,715 impressions.
A landing page for the program was created for more information and to act as a one-stop for visitors to sign up for the Dine Pass. E-newsletters were routinely sent out to consumer databases to sign up in advance and all month long. A robust digital display campaign was also enacted which resulted in 6,311,037 impressions and 75,830 clicks.
OpenTable signed on and the team secured e-blasts, web page takeovers, social posts and other exposure opportunities. This partnership allowed Newport Beach & Company to reach OpenTable diners and educate them on the initiative.
The team developed and distributed a participating restaurant toolkit, a turnkey of assets designed to promote Restaurant Month and the Dine Pass. Included in the kit was ready-made social media posts and stories templates, printable employee one-sheet for staff education and a printable sign for POS area with a QR code to sign up for the pass.
The team also printed 50 campaign banners and were delivered to restaurants in prominent locations to hang on their exteriors for additional exposure.