The fact that AMEX has signed on for another year supporting News Corp Australia’s delicious. Month Out is “extremely significant,” and “definitely not something that we take for granted,” according to Harriet Nash, strategy director, Newsamp NSW Consortium Agencies.
After three years as the naming rights sponsor, American Express returned for a fourth year as Naming Rights Sponsor and exclusive finance partner of delicious Month Out 2023 – building on the brand perception and consideration lifts reported by Kantar. In 2023, the campaign saw the best ever uplift for message association across any News sponsorship campaign, up +11 points (18% exposed vs 7% control). Intent to dine out at participating restaurants was up +12 points (32% exposed vs 12% control).
“We’ll always go above and beyond to deliver the best value that we can to our long-standing partners,” Nash told Mediaweek.
“There’s also a lot of research on the effectiveness of that long-standing brand affinity as well. If you’ve got that affinity, consumers do notice that over time – you can see that in the results that we’ve provided.”
There was one overriding challenge for the team regarding the launch of the 2023 Month Out.
“In the context of increased cost of living, how could we get consumers to dine out at participating restaurants and support local businesses whilst driving consideration, membership and usage for American Express?” Nash explained.
The way to do that was to “maximise every touch point within the delicious ecosystem, but also take it further than delicious as well.
“We have our prestige network and our wider news network, we have partnerships with Foxtel and a lot of editorial PR and marketing support as well. So for us, it was all about the physical events themselves, then maximising the brand footprint and extending to a wider audience using our broader network.”
Last year’s campaign played a dual role too, positively impacting the AMEX brand, with credit card intention up 12% (33% exposed vs. 21% control). delicious.com.au, the site achieved its largest digital audience on record during May 2023, with expanded reach against 25-39 year olds, with readers 34% more likely to visit a participating restaurant.
“A long haul partnership meant we were able to maximise media and PR value, making the 2023 partnership bigger and better than ever, building on the long standing affinity between the delicious. and American Express brands,” Nash said.
“The success of this campaign also demonstrated the appetite of consumers to get back to dining and experience real live events after a couple of rocky years for the industry.”
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Top Image: Harriet Nash