Kick-starting the party on Wednesday night, Merivale’s latest festival embodies the “decadence” trend as well as the award-winning group’s new centralised and cutting-edge marketing.
Late 2015 the Merivale marketing machine launched a new concept, aiming to better even engage its legion of followers and dedicated patrons. Head of Content, Sarah Ranawake, spoke to PubTIC about Meritales.
“As the name suggests, Meritales is all about telling the stories behind our world-class venues. It’s also a way of giving something back to our guests, rather than just selling to them – whether that’s recipes from one of our renowned chefs, interiors advice courtesy of our amazing stylists, or music playlists curated by our DJs, the aim is to create content that engages our audiences and adds some value to their lives.”
The new approach was been trialled throughout the Christmas period, and Ranawake reports a success in terms of both anecdotal feedback and hard numbers.
“Overall, our eDM open rates have nearly doubled, and engagement is up by 40 per cent. Time spent on our website and page views have also increased significantly.”
The 2016 launch of the eighth annual instalment of the group’s March Into Merivale five-week festival took place this week.
Based around ‘decadence’ the highly polished Meritales theming and Pinterest-style news bulletin enticed viewers to “watch as [their] guilty pleasures unfold” and consider themselves invited to world-class food, wine and over-the-top debauchery.
MIM 2016 will present 35 events, from home-cooking tips with chef Danielle Alvarez, to an “All Pleasure no Guilt” ode to silver service boasting a five-course, nine-hatted dinner.
Ranawake says the drive behind the Meritales concept is to maintain consistency and purpose behind the group’s branding, including engagement on social media.
“We also ensure we tailor all content, including video and photography, so it is suited to that specific social channel and reflects how our social community engages with us on that channel.”
The full 2016 March into Merivale program can be found here.
