News UK Commercial and Mediacom create the Ultimate Dinner Party

Siemens has partnered with The Sunday Times Magazine for a native ad campaign to raise awareness of its range of intelligent cookware in the run up to Christmas. Created by News UK Commercial and Mediacom, the six week lifestyle campaign will include a double page spread every week featuring a celebrity’s perfect dinner party, designed to inspire the brand’s target audience who enjoy entertaining at home.

Launching on 16^th November, the native advertising campaign will feature Phillip Schofield, Gabby Logan and Alexander Armstrong discussing what makes a great dinner party - from the food and the setting to the guests and the music. Each week, the native content will reference a range of Siemens’ products to link back to each dinner party.

With one of the strongest food editorials in the market, Siemens chose to run the campaign with The Sunday Times Magazine for the publication’s reach and food-savvy audience. According to the publication’s on-going audience survey, 1.32m Sunday Times readers like to try out new recipes and 36% of Sunday Times readers are looking to buy a large kitchen appliance in the next 6 months.[1]

Gemma Freeman, Group Marketing Manager, Siemens said:

We wanted to inspire our target audience, and demonstrate to them how intelligent and clever features found in Siemens appliances  can improve their dinner party experiences and make their lives easier.. We know they want to stay ‘in the know’ and we decided to partner with The Sunday Times Magazine to reinforce our brand values with an aspirational feel.

“This exciting campaign will really appeal to their desire to create something different.  Mediacom created the Ultimate Dinner Party working exclusively with The Sunday Times featuring three celebrities and their perfect dinner party. Each celebrity created the menu, talked about their choice of guests and revealed hints and tips cooking their meal with Siemens appliances both in print and captured for YouTube in short, entertaining videos. The idea and execution is something we can’t wait to share.

Jacquie Duckworth, Partnerships Director for News UK Commercial, added:

Our strategy for Siemens was to create and deliver a campaign that would enable them to build a deeper level of engagement with their target audience. Our readers are highly-engaged with the content they consume and believe that content is worth paying for. Working closely with Mediacom and Siemens has enabled us to deliver a high quality native advertising campaign that ties into our readers’ passion for food and entertainment.

[1] Source: Differentology/NewsUK research 2014