Belgians are famous for their dining culture. We are happy to live in a country where food is truly important. To prove that no one will ever be able to change this, even when we were still living the strong post attack emotions, we called out to all Belgians to come and dine in one of Brussels’ 12.000 restaurants and share their support. Fighting terror and economic downturn the Belgian way, became a fight without prayers or big words, but with knife and fork.

It was a twist on the #foodstagram. Instead of photographing their mouth-watering food, we asked people to take pictures of their empty plates, displaying a peace-symbol made from cutlery, and share them on #DiningForBrussels.

Belgian social feeds were not showing pretty pictures but a bold statement about the importance of continuing to go out and dine these days.

The campaign was kicked off by a newspaper ad and got amplified by the Belgian social media community. Their pictures of empty plates became trending topic the very moment our newspaper ad was published – and one week after the launch, they still were.

TIMELINE:

Tuesday 26th of May (1 month after the attacks) = editorial news about the fast declining Brussels’ restaurant industry.

Wednesday 27th of May

- Newspaper ad with call to action to participate in our campaign #DiningForBrussels

- Kick off campaign in social media by the editors in chief & journalists

- PR push of all communication in 1-on-1 pitching to key journalists of competitive media and Belgian influencers & foodbloggers.

June, Summer 2016: Support came from different angles: competitive news brands, politicians, famous restaurant owners, national and international brands as Eurostar & Uber, Brussels lovers and foodies from all over the country.

#DiningForBrussels became no. 1 trending topic within hours of the launch. On day one, we reached 1 out of 3 Belgians via social media. More than 6600 messages including #DiningForBrussels were posted on social media. The total reach was more than 6.8 million.

The media value of our PR campaign was € 734.865 which is more than the annual media budget of both brands put together. Famous Belgians and restaurant ambassadors were invited to talk about the problem in other media. The subject received attention on various opinion programs on radio and television. And while a lot of people were talking about the suicide bomber that got arrested, even more people were talking about #DiningForBrussels

In the end, we fought terror and economic downturn, not with prayers or big words, but in a way only Belgians can, with a knife, a fork and a spoon.