What you need to know:

• This month, a collaboration between Crown and MasterChef went live at the entertainment venue’s Melbourne site giving the reality TV show’s fans and foodies an opportunity to enjoy a meal created by MasterChef Alumni chefs.
• The partnership required all parties to lean in, says media agency, Initiative, which worked with Crown, integrated creative agency, Mediabrands Content Studio, Paramount Brand Studio and Endemol Shine Australia to realise the vision of an onsite dining experience.
• For Crown, the unique physical experience is a clear effort towards manifesting the new brand positioning and promise it debuted last September, ‘Here’s Where Things Get Interesting’, says recently installed CMO, Yolanda Uys.
• The rebrand is an ambitious attempt to reorient perceptions of Crown towards the pillars of elevated dining, entertainment, lifestyle and luxury experiences – not just gaming spaces – and extend out customer prospects.
• Initiative and Paramount say the partnership was signed in a couple of days and the experience launched in record time, an “unprecedented” scenario for a deal of this scale but one that reflects the value senior stakeholders saw in making it a possibility.
• Thousands of consumers have now joined the waitlist for the four chefs delivering the onsite experience between May – August.

Working with Paramount and MasterChef to deliver an onsite dining experience manned by former the TV show’s chefs goes well beyond sponsorship; it’s a partnership deliberately designed to manifest Crown’s refreshed brand positioning, its CMO says.

Recently installed Crown Resorts EGM of brand and marketing, Yolanda Uys, along with Paramount Brand Studio Head of Integration and Partnerships, Tamar Hovagimian, and outgoing Initiative Chief Strategy and Product Officer, Chris Colter, caught up with Mi3 to discuss the new style of partnership and what it took to make it happen.

The trio debuted a pop-up restaurant and dining experience, dubbed Alumni, at Crown Melbourne running from mid-May to 4 August. Three chefs have been announced with a fourth to come: Kishwar Chowdhury (16 May – 2 June), Callum Hann (6 – 23 June), and Khanh Ong (27 June – 14 July). The program is a collaboration between Crown and its media agency, Initiative, integrated creative agency, Mediabrands Content Studio, Paramount Brand Studio and Endemol Shine Australia.

A salubrious launch event was held on 14 May attended by celebrity chefs, media and entertainment personalities and influencers including Andy Allen, Poh Ling Yeow, Sofia Levin, Guillaume Brahimi (Chef), Sarah Todd (ex-MasterChef), Moraya Wilson (Miss Universe Australia), Tristan MacManus (media personality), Brit Selwood (influencer) and Lorinska Merrington (influencer).

For Crown, the unique physical experience is a clear effort towards manifesting the new brand positioning and promise it debuted last September, ‘Here’s Where Things Get Interesting’. It’s an ambitious attempt to reorient the group’s brand towards the pillars of elevated dining, entertainment, lifestyle and luxury experiences – not just gaming spaces – and extend out customer prospects. It’s equally a play towards positioning Crown as a constructive contributor to culture and community in cities it operates in (Sydney, Melbourne, Perth).

“This partnership is a key part of the continued evolution of Crown’s brand, positioning our resorts as leading entertainment destinations in Australia. Food is a key pillar of this, and with no greater dining-focused entertainment brand than MasterChef, this partnership was a fitting way for us to collaborate with a brand that, like Crown, is known for delivering exceptional culinary experiences,” Uys tells Mi3. 

Uys says it was important to have more than just a good alignment between two brands. “This is not a sponsorship but instead a partnership and we’ve seamlessly integrated the MasterChef brand into the Crown ecosystem,” she says.

“We didn’t want to just sponsor the show, instead, we wanted to work together to create a new world-class experience that evolves the MasterChef story and ignites excitement amongst fans and diners across the country.”

Crown’s was a much-needed brand refresh after several years of scandal. These included copping a $450 million fine for breaking Australia’s anti-laundering and counter-terrorism laws and a clear missive from the NSW gaming regulator that it wasn’t suitable to hold a licence for its newly launched, $2.2bn Sydney casino. The group has since been acquired for $8.9 billion by the world’s largest private equity firm, Blackstone, in June 2022.

The rebrand work late last year was also the first to come out of Crown for a decade. As well as a refresh brand logo and custom typeface, Crown has adopted the creative idea of energising and uplifting experiences. A key asset is a 60-second film shot by Finch’s Christopher Riggert exhibiting emotive visuals of its onsite destinations and experiences across four major pillars. The initial national campaign flight included advertising across TV, print, online and out-of-home, plus event and entertainment sponsorships. Crown has 51 restaurants and 31 bars across its three locations.

For Uys, who joined Crown as CMO in February, creating emotional connections with the brand and delivering on the brand promise is a major priority.

“Bringing our brand promise of ‘Here’s where thing’s get interesting’ to life through fun and entertaining events at Crown is where our energy is gravitating,” she says. “With a focus on creating a world-class guest experience at every touchpoint.”

The result is Alumni selling out in the early days, with waitlists for Callum, Khanh and the ‘Mystery Chef’ quickly growing to a few thousand each.

Speeding into an ambitious partnership

Paramount’s Hovagimian says Crown’s agency partner, Initiative, came to her team with an open brief. “They wanted pie in the sky ideas for Crown and MasterChef and had identified MasterChef as a very strategic fit for Crown,” she says.

“The partnership was signed in a couple of days, which is unprecedented for a deal of this scale. The show was already underway production wise but the opportunity we had developed meant it was all still possible to come to life and in the biggest way possible.”

With dining a key passion point for many consumers, and dining overindexing in Melbourne in particular, Initiative’s Colter says it was critical to find an idea that would drive footfall at Crown first and foremost.

“Importantly, it also gave Crown an unfair share of culture when it comes to food content and desirability,” he says. “When you do a lot of media analytics around the properties people visit, and programs they watch, MasterChef not only was the richest platform because of its size, scale and influence, but also because of its alignment with brand – it’s an iconic brand with such a high calibre of talent. It was the opportunity to align ourselves with that brand, as well as find an opportunity to enrich it even further with something only Crown could deliver. It was an idea worthy of people’s attention and most importantly, their feet and dollars.

“Not only is Crown buying ad spaces and sponsoring a program, it’s putting skin in the game to make this unique and magnetic. Often, when you present ideas like this to clients, they can be seen as too ambitious – it sounds great but it's hard enough to buy a sponsorship package let alone commit the entire business engine to this.”

Colter cites daily connections and a “spirit of overcommunication” throughout the process. “You don’t get something of this magnitude up this quickly without everybody being on the bus and having an action-oriented mindset. It wasn’t a case of 'let’s build a commercial base to see what it would cost to stand up some IP'; it was more 'that sounds great, that’s in the spirit of the partnership and let’s take it'.

“It’s also the fact we had senior stakeholders involved… when they see mutual value, it moves things along.”  

As well as the actual dining facilities, Crown is activating its member bases, in-venue screens and promotion carousels.

Short and long-term outcomes

When Alumni restaurant was first revealed in MasterChef episode two, almost 5,000 users promptly visited the Crown Melbourne website. There’s been 65,000 views of the MasterChef x Alumni landing page since launch and counting, and Initiative says fans and foodies are making reservations throughout the booking period with many returning more than once.

“We’ll also undertake a study post-campaign to track awareness, intent, likeability and any call to action taken for the broader Crown brand. Working with the team on a year two iteration of this partnership will be our biggest measure of success when the time comes,” Hovagimian says.  

Colter and Hovagimian see continued success and ratings of Masterchef itself is another ultimate indicator of success.

“It’s a ticketed event so you get all the bookings, visitation, revenue and can effective correlate ROI. So those short-term metrics are there. But what we also want to do is the long-term metrics such as brand favourability, uplift on consideration – the full-funnel analytics to give us that read,” Colter says.  

“We wanted to make sure we’re attracting discerning diners and people who are seen as leaders in the culinary space with an experience that would appeal to them. There is a real sociability about it – people who set the agenda on what’s cool to eat plus who set the dining experience were our core audience. But Crown is an inclusive business too, so the opportunity to have a platform that not only reaches people with discerning taste, but also reaches millions more, means you’re democratising opportunity to see the food and actually taste it.”

Making partnerships work

To get partnerships to work, genuine collaboration is key, Hovagimian says. “You need respect for boundaries and values / areas you can play within,” she advises. “And ultimately trust – you’re taking a big leap and need to have that trust to make it sing.”

Colter adds belief and commitment to the must-have list. “The mindset was 'there is no such thing as an impossibility, how do we make something happen',” he says.

“The work done to integrate Crown into the show is equally matched by the work Crown has done to integrate MasterChef into its entire ecosystem. Sometimes you have a great idea but it stops short of potential because you’ve run out of steam or don’t have more money or resource to throw at it. We found it where it didn’t exist, pulled new people in and delivered in record time.”

While the Crown partnership is paying off, MasterChef has come under fire after striking a two-year partnership with Australian Gas Networks on a ‘carbon neutral’ renewable gas kitchen this season. What initially seemed like a win for sustainability has been slapped with greenwashing claims from climate groups claiming the broadcaster has sold out to an "an impractical fantasy" from a gas industry determined to delay the transition to an electrified economy. On 20 May, Comms Declare confirmed it had lodged a formal complaint about the partnership to the ACCC.