Branded Entertainment is rapidly growing in the US and is emerging as a leading alternative media strategy. The difficulty of reaching an increasingly consumers, who (1) have more ways to ignore and filter out brand messages than ever before and (2) the transformation of communications due to these developments, have made it more important than ever for brands in the US to invest in branded entertainment. In 2010, advertisers spent over $25bn on branded entertainment and that number is expected to reach over $38bn by 2014, a 9.2% compound annual growth rate.

To get the word out about the Always Open series, we took a 2-pronged approach that utilised both paid and earned channels. For paid media, we teamed up with the leader in comedy-driven entertainment targeting Millennials: college humour. Within collegehumor.com, we had a unique URL to house all of the videos when they were released as well as being featured on the homepage and their social media channels. For earned media, we utilised social media and blogger outreach to drive word-of-mouth. We reached out to celebrity, entertainment, and fan bloggers to promote individual episodes and the series overall.

Our primary objective for Always Open has been to increase positive perceptions and talk worthiness of the Denny’s brand specifically among Millennials.

Our perceptual rating as measured by Brandindex doubled, leaping from a 16.2 to 32.

Our Buzz rating also nearly doubled, increasing from 36.1 to 66.1.

Videos received over 6m views.In fact, a Yougov Brand Index from March 2011, covering the Always Open timeframe, shows that perceptions among Millennials increased so much they came to rate us even more highly than the adults who traditionally represented our core consumer.Even trade industry experts were impressed:“Thanks to Denny’s new celebrity web series called ‘Always Open’, they are the hottest brand online for the 18 - 34 demo" - Nation’s Restaurant News 4.18.11Since the launch of Always Open web series, Denny’s has experienced its most successful business results in 5 years. Foot traffic, guest check average, and overall sales are in positive territory for the first time since 2006. (Source: Client’s daily in-store tracking, 2011) So, while Millennials are just one part of our diverse customer base, our success in getting them re-engaged with the brand has in turn helped power the overall renaissance of the brand.