A ‘date night’ promotion for Newsday in New York’s Long Island brought new branded content clients and the prospect of return business.

The idea of creating awareness, driving traffic, and stimulating sales at local restaurants, hotels, and entertainment venues during the slow months of January and February, came from in-house content studio Brand360.

Senior director for client solutions and Brand360 Nannette Fevola tells in an INMA Ideas blog, how the sponsor-supported Date Night! sales promotion was designed to create awareness, convey information, drive traffic and stimulate sales at local restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues.

“During January and February’s post-holiday sales slump, content encouraged Long Islanders to go out and spend quality time with loved ones by showcasing the appeal – and deals – at local restaurants, entertainment options and area hotels,” she says.

“The objective of Date Night! was to provide local restaurants, hotels, and entertainment venues with an affordable introduction to the power of branded content. It also offered local businesses a unique marketing tactic to drive traffic in the ‘off-season’ and promote mid-week visits.”

The promotion also served to pre-sell Valentine’s Day, Super Bowl and Restaurant Week events. A secondary goal was to drive new business and generate incremental revenue for Brand360 by making branded content affordable for small local businesses.

The digital programme was formatted as a modular photolisticle that offered 14 large images and captions with live links throughout. Each participating local business received two dedicated copy blurbs and visuals to tell their stories and attract visitors. All seven shared sponsors received their own vanity URLs and were encouraged to promote and repurpose the content in their marketing efforts.

All advertisers benefited from traffic-driving tactics including digital display, print ads and social media.

The Date Night! promotion ran for six weeks and remained on the Brand360 site for a year after its active promotion. “With over three minutes spent on page by consumers, Date Night! generated nearly 4,000 pageviews, 60,000 social engagements, and a click-through rate of more than 25 per cent during its promotion period,” she says.

Four of the seven accounts in Date Night! were new to branded content, three represented new business for Newsday, and four of the local businesses said they planned to advertise in Newsday again.