Destinations Council Destiny Awards > Niche Targeting

Chefs Dish

About This Entry:

Washington, DC’s restaurant scene generated lots of buzz in 2016. That same year, Bon Appétit named DC the “Best Restaurant City of the Year,” Zagat designated the District as the “Hottest Food City of 2016” and DC became only the fourth U.S. city with a Michelin Guide.

In order to capitalize on the great success of these accolades and keep the momentum around the interest in DC's dining scene high, Destination DC sought to develop a campaign to reach potential visitors with an interest in the culinary arts. The city’s hot restaurant scene also complemented Destination DC’s ongoing marketing efforts to highlight neighborhoods and things to experience beyond visiting the National Mall.

Through a partnership with food media company ChefsFeed, Destination DC developed and debuted 'Chefs Dish DC', a food video series in which a different chef takes viewers on a food tour through one of his or her favorite neighborhoods. ChefsFeed distributed six videos to its extensive network of foodies in major markets across multiple channels, while Destination DC also promoted the videos via social media and its website. In total, the videos generated more than 2 million views, making this culinary awareness campaign a great success.

Campaign Strategy:

Destination DC activated local chef talent for video content and utilized ChefsFeed's production skills to produce the five-part video series. Destination DC was the first destination marketing organization to debut its video series with ChefsFeed. ChefsFeed is a leader in using talent (chefs) to influence consumers. It works with popular and up-and-coming culinary geniuses to influence followers. In total, its chefs have over 200 Michelin-stars, over 500 James Beard awards or nominations and over 30 million followers on social media. In its own words, it “harnesses the power of our chef community to authentically amplify our partners across mobile, web, social and events.”

Chefs participating in this video series include: José Andrés of ThinkFoodGroup, Victor Albisu of Taco Bamba, Carlos Delgado of China Chilcano, Mike Isabella of Mike Isabella Concepts, Tim Ma of Kyirisan and Marjorie Meek-Bradley of Smoked & Stacked.

Once content was produced, ChefsFeed distributed the content across its platforms in the following ways. ChefsFeed placed ads promoting the 'Chefs Dish DC' video series throughout its partner network, which includes outlets such as Food & Wine, The Daily Meal and Gothamist. Two ChefsFeed custom email blasts promoting the videos were sent to all CF opt-in subscribers (950,000). ChefsFeed used its social amplify tool to have chefs and other partners post the Washington, DC content on their pages. The success of the video series would be determined by the number of video views and social engagements the campaign experience.

Results:

The results and feedback from the 'Chefs Dish DC' campaign have been phenomenal. Destination DC would consider the collaboration with ChefsFeed a success if its quantitative goals were met -- 375,000 video views and 5,000 social engagements. Both of the goals were met and exceeded by ChefsFeed: actual video views topped 1,623,325 and social engagements totaled 7,118. In addition, Facebook video views from @washingtondc totaled 485,568 views and 5,611 engagements. Clearly the series resonated with the ChefsFeed audience, but beyond that, Washington, DC was able to continue the conversation of DC's dining scene through a feature post about the series on José Andrés's personal website (see links). A feature in "22 Creative Tourism Marketing Campaigns" Report authored by CrowdRiff and Skift in May 2017 (see PDFs). Also by generating examples of success for our stakeholders.

“Without a doubt, this vid has made me schedule a trip to DC where I will be visiting the Columbia Room. Those people and their attention to detail certainly got my attention.” – @bkeene12 YouTube

Earned authority within the chef community and resonated with ChefsFeed’s stakeholders:

“The DC series from ChefsFeed is killer. Dope stories, people and places all about food. The best way to get to know people and their culture is through their food and its history.” – Jamie Bissonnette, Nominee for Best Chef: Northeast, James Beard Foundation (from ChefsFeed wrap report)

Members have been asking for more. Following 'Chefs Dish DC', member restaurants wanted to be included in our next 'Chefs Dish' videos. We wrapped shooting the series, but the continued interest is something we know we can capitalize on in future marketing campaigns. In lieu of creating a new video series, we worked to highlight members in enhanced culinary content on washington.org.

What we’ve learned from Chefs Dish DC: The success of Chefs Dish DC has helped inspire how we approach future video series. Having a chef-driven food series resonated with foodies and using an authority in the space helped our distribution efforts.

The budget for production and video distribution was $100,000.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

Leveraging the accolades and awards D.C. has been honored with is smart in terms of timing and Destination DC’s overall vision of further promoting D.C. as a culinary destination. The campaign has a great content strategy, well-crafted creative, and gives visitors another perspective of D.C., helping to paint a broader brand picture that counters the negativity of crime and politics. Working with a strong media partner to help create content proves effective, and local partners and stakeholders were pleased with the series as they have asked for it to continue. The series is well shot and edited. The video view rate far exceeded Destination DC’s goals and social engagements were strong.