Best Food Industry Email Message Campaign

At the height of the holiday shopping season, we wanted to grow awareness and orders of Olive Garden’s Signature Classic dishes. But with deep discounts, flash sales, and holiday promotions flooding in-boxes, capturing people’s attention wasn’t going to be easy. Yet, our compelling message and strong visuals proved to be just as effective as any promotion. Based purely on the strength of our creative, we were able to cut through the noise and inspire high rates of engagement.

From the preheader to the body copy, we spoke to the power of sharing a meal with loved ones during the holidays. And by creating a wreath out of our most beloved dishes, we carried the festive vibes into the visuals while also whetting appetites.

As a result of our creative, we had a 16% open rate (1.3 million unique opens) and a 5% unique click-through rate, which is more than 8X the industry average. We also had a 1.6% conversion rate—or about 1,000 out-of-restaurant purchases—including to-go, catering, and gift card sales. And perhaps most remarkably, we exceeded benchmarks for open and click-through rates among people who rarely engage with our emails. Ultimately, this email inspired people to slow down, share a meal with loved ones, and make new memories with our brand and one another.

Contributors:

Brand Manager, Olive Garden::	Jami Simeone
Associate Brand Manager, Olive Garden::	Kyle Cominsky
Senior Digital Marketing Strategist, Olive Garden:	Hesham Elkholi
Account Supervisor, dentsuMB:	Paige Dolton
Group Strategy Director, dentsuMB::	Stephanie Nelson
Creative Director, dentsuMB::	Sean Collander
Associate Creative Director, dentsuMB:	Tara Remiasz
Senior Art Director, dentsuMB:	Monica Behrmann
Art Director, dentsuMB:	Lukas Reichert
Art Director, 360i:	Naomi Trad

DENTSU

Location: United States