#MarketingEventsAwards 2020 highlight: Clearwater Communications sweeps 3 awards with gastronomical experience

Clinching the gold for Best use of Multi-Channel Marketing, silver for Best Business Event: Internal and bronze for Best Team (agency) is agency Clearwater Communications. During MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Marketing Events Awards 2020, the team bagged the wins for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019, sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, which is a renowned, annual, mega-event celebration of global gastronomy and gastronomic trends. The event recognises the world’s best restaurants for culinary prowess, diversity of the world’s culinary landscape and unique culinary experiences. This media-worthy event engages the world’s leading, F&B and hospitality community.

In 2019, the 18th edition The World’s 50 Best Restaurants was held in Singapore and Asia for the first time, globalising the event and brand in reach and appeal, whilst recognising Singapore and Asia as global gastronomic hubs.

Challenge

The event aimed to be a highly immersive and interactive one, igniting the five senses of every guest throughout the experience journey. The team at Clearwater Communications was tasked to:

1. Showcase The World’s 50 Best Restaurants brand in Asia and globalise the brand’s reach and appeal by creating a high-profile, engaging, media-worthy event. This was further amplified through multi-channel marketing and a seamless integrated marketing and promotion campaign.
   
   
2. Bring community of world-class chefs together to celebrate the world’s best restaurants, universality of global cuisines and unique dining experiences.
   
   
3. Celebrate regional gastronomic strengths through culinary conference, demonstrations and fun.
   
   
4. Elevate Singapore and Asia as world-class gastronomic and hospitality destinations through event marketing and also the multi-channel marketing and integrated marketing campaign amplification.
   
   
5. Announce The World’s 50 Best Restaurants award winners, recognising gastronomic trends and established restaurants, whilst inspiring the next generation. Make the Awards newsworthy, creative and exciting to maximise media coverage and media attendance.
   
   
6. Offer sponsors activation and global media coverage opportunities to engage hospitality community which sponsors and partners can also leverage and amplify for multi-channel marketing through their own partner and cobranded multi-channel marketing ecosystem.
   
   
7. Create an immersive event experience to arouse all five senses.

The team was given a four month timeline where they had to plan and deliver the mega event which was immersive for both the live and virtual audience. The team also met with challenges such as a complex, long lead-time projection mapping delivered by compressed production schedule.

The task for Clearwater Communications didn’t end there. Taking sponsorship duties, the agency coordinated international sponsors in several time zones, with their own branding, brand specific activations, and marketing agendas. Moreover, the mega-event was spread across multiple venues within Marina Bay Sands.

Strategy

There were eight main strategies the team focused on:

1. Globalising The World’s 50 Best Restaurant brand’s reach and appeal: Staging the inaugural event in Singapore and Asia (4th continent), exposed The World’s 50 Best Restaurants brand to new Asian regional audiences of food lovers, passionate about unique culinary experiences and gastro-tourism.
   
   
2. Elevating Singapore and Asia as gastronomic destinations: With Singapore as host nation, and Asia as host region, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants event showcased Singapore’s, innovative, gastronomic, hospitality brand and culinary heritage (from fusion fine dining to hawker, to diverse food and beverage, to unique hospitality experiences in world-class venues) to global hospitality leaders, international media and a global, virtual audience of millions and further amplified its impact through a multi-channel marketing campaign.
   
   
3. Activating change: #50BestTalks, presented by Miele, featured a live culinary conference and culinary demonstrations with the world’s best chefs: Tetsuya Wakuda, Massimo Bottura, Daniela Soto-Innes (The World’s Best Female Chef 2019), Eric Ripert, and Ana Ros. The chefs debated “Kitchen Karma” and how to foster positive change in the kitchen. The message was further amplified to be wider reaching through the multi-channel marketing campaign.
   
   
4. Celebrating Regional Gastronomic Strengths: To Widen Appeal Regional gastronomic strengths were celebrated with the first-ever 50 Best Masterclass series: three-interactive sessions with four of the world’s best chefs, from different regions. Guests sampled regional recipe creations and even licked their plates.
   
   
5. Sponsor’s activations to engage global hospitality community: 24 sponsors’ activation opportunities to engage global hospitality communities and media during Awards.
   
   
6. Celebrating the best in pursuit of culinary excellence: The strategy to recognise The World’s 50 Best Restaurants comprised a series of immersive, interactive and experiential Award celebrations, presented as creatively as the gastronomy it celebrated. The newsworthy Awards were further amplified to a global audience through the multi-channel marketing campaign.

The “Modern City Garden” creative concept, inspired by Singapore’s Gardens By The Bay attraction, was created to position Singapore as a modern city in a garden with tech elements of SMART nation. The “Modern City Garden” theme manifested elements of Singapore’s nature, immersive projection mapping, neon lights, digital, modern technology, positioning Singapore as an innovative, modern city garden nation.

By featuring Singapore’s plants, herbs, spices within “Modern City Garden” theme, the team reflected vital ingredients used for creating unique culinary experiences, to arouse all five senses and the discerning palates of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants community.

Key industry themes communicated through the concept and the concept’s creative manifestations were growth, enrichment, sustainability and Singapore as a city guided by the pulse of nature. The key visual was seamlessly leveraged throughout every step and touchpoint of the multi-channel marketing campaign.

Execution

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants comprised several immersive, interactive, innovative experiential events spread across two days, in multiple venues. It was executed with the “Modern City Garden” theme in mind and brought The World’s 50 Best Restaurants brand to life, whilst arousing and engaging all five senses. The newsworthy event provided the occasion, content, thought leadership and awards to amplify the global reach and impact of the event through multichannel marketing.

Live interactive 50 Best Masterclasses with four of the world’s best chefs were held, which were further amplified to extend the global reach and impact through a multi-channel marketing campaign. Immersive studio sets evolved in design to reflect individual chefs cooking style and ingredients.

An experiential awards event was created to elevate Singapore’s Hospitality Reputation. The newsworthy, high profile experience was curated and designed to maximise social sharing, media coverage, global reach and impact through a multi-channel marketing campaign.

A first-ever press conference event at new KOMA venue was held, and in attendance were both international and local media. Guests from many different countries also experienced world-class Singapore Nightlife experience in the new Marquee Club, showcasing Singapore’s hospitality, culinary, and cocktail culture, within an immersive, “Modern City Garden” experiential entertainment.

The team used immersive 3D content, projection mapping, themed event collaterals, projection screens, LED walls to bring numerous of its executions to life.

Results

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants event saw nearly 1,300 guests attending from over 60 countries.  Global media coverage comprising thousands of multimedia articles, and live and on-demand streaming reached millions of guests in approximately 150 countries and multimedia coverage achieved both global media impact and media value worth millions of dollars, according to the agency. 

Singapore and Asia’s world-class culinary experiences, unique venues and hospitality excellence were showcased to a global audience and 59 awards were presented to established and emerging restaurants and chefs. Event marketing campaigns helped the hospitality industry by increasing global awareness, customers and sales. The number one restaurant Mirazur received thousands of bookings 72 hours post-event.

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