BRAVO ANNOUNCES THE MAKERS OF THE GLAD FAMILY OF PRODUCTS, MACY'S AND TOYOTA AS FULLY INTEGRATED SPONSORS FOR "TOP CHEF: LAS VEGAS"
Additional Sponsors Include Alexia Crunchy Snacks, Diet Coke, MasterCard And Swanson Bravo Renews Series Partnership With Food & Wine Magazine For Sixth Season, Premiering Wednesday, Aug 19 At 9 PM ET/PT
NEW YORK - August 12, 2009 - Bravo has secured partnerships with the makers of the Glad Family of Products, Macy's, Toyota, Alexia Crunchy Snacks, Diet Coke, MasterCard and Swanson as official sponsors for the sixth season of Bravo's Emmy and James Beard Award-winning series and the No. 1 food show on cable, "Top Chef," premiering Wednesday, August 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. These multi-platform deals provide an unprecedented level of brand exposure through exclusive in-show product integration along with a major on-air and online presence. The announcements were made by Susan Malfa, Senior Vice President, Ad Sales, Bravo Media and Oxygen Media.
For the sixth consecutive cycle, Bravo continues its overall series partnership with Food & Wine magazine, including the expertise of the magazine's special projects director Gail Simmons as a series judge. The magazine will once again provide prizing for the series - the winner of "Top Chef: Las Vegas" will be featured in a future issue and will be showcased at the Annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.
"'Top Chef's collaboration with our sponsors has proven time and again to produce real results, delivering overall brand recall and program engagement," said Malfa. "With each new season we build and innovate with our sponsors, who greatly contribute to the process of creating new and influential advertising approaches to television."
Elements of the fully integrated sponsorships surrounding "Top Chef: Las Vegas" include:
The makers of the Glad Family of Products will provide a $125,000 prize to the "Top Chef" winner. As a fully integrated sponsor, Glad products will be featured on-air throughout the series. A custom vignette featuring the current chef'testants' answer to the question "What dish would you cook to say I love you" will be revealed on-air. The makers of the Glad Family of Products will also be sponsoring and providing prizing for the "Top Chef" Foodie Flyaway Sweepstakes. Online, the makers of the Glad Family of Products will sponsor a brand new holiday "Send A Cookie" e-card application featuring cookie recipes from past chef'testants, and will be the exclusive sponsor of the "Top Recipe Finder," which will include a new holiday dessert section during the holiday time period.
A fully integrated sponsor, Macy's will be involved in an elimination challenge this season with the winner receiving a $10,000 gift card. Macy's will also provide $100,000 of merchandise to the winner of "Top Chef." This season, www.BravoTV.com will host a "Top Chef: Las Vegas" B-Hive sponsored by Macy's where viewers can host weekly viewing parties for their fellow food-obsessed friends, including game ideas with a Sweepstakes where viewers can win the Ultimate Finale Party with a past chef'testant. Macy's will also execute in-store initiatives for their support in Feeding America through their "Come Together" program - featuring past chef'testants hosting cooking demos in six regional events across the country.
Toyota is a fully integrated sponsor and will serve as the primary transportation vehicles for the competing chef'testants as they make their way around Sin City for "Top Chef" challenges. Toyota will also be a sponsor for the "Top Chef" Foodie Flyaway Sweepstakes.
Additional Sponsors of "Top Chef: Las Vegas" include:
Alexia Crunchy Snacks will sponsor a Quickfire challenge this season
Diet Coke joins the "Top Chef" team as a digitally integrated sponsor that includes sponsoring the "Top Recipe" webisode series featuring former chef'testant Fabio Viviani as the host on www.BravoTV.com, where viewers learn to cook each episode's winning recipe. Diet Coke will also sponsor the "Eat Tastefully" microsite which highlights former chef'testant Brian Malarkey, who will provide recipes, a weekly blog and the "Healthy Remix" - in which he takes the winning dish and puts a healthy spin on it. Another element of their sponsorship is the "Top Chef" mobile fan club, which includes weekly text messages on eating healthy with links to "Top Recipe" and the microsite on m.BravoTV.com. Diet Coke will also sponsor all "Top Chef" episodes on Video On Demand.
MasterCard joins this season of "Top Chef" on-air and online. MasterCard will sponsor the "Top Chef: Quickfire Quickie" - which is a series of on-air podbusters driving viewers to an exclusive webisode series where the winning chef of selected weekly quickfires talks about his or her inspiration for the dish as well as how to make it. The webisodes will be available on www.BravoTV.com.
Swanson returns this season as an integrated partner on-air with usage and placements of Swanson across the series.
Bravo's "Top Chef" offers a fascinating window into the competitive, pressure-filled environment of world-class cookery and the restaurant business at the highest level. The series features seventeen aspiring chefs who compete for their shot at culinary stardom and the chance to earn the prestigious title of "Top Chef." Each episode holds two challenges for the chefs. The first is a quickfire test of their basic abilities and the second is a more involved elimination challenge designed to test the versatility and inventiveness of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for a range of demanding clients. The challenges not only test their skills in the kitchen, but also uncover if they have the customer service, management and teamwork abilities required of a Top Chef. The competing chefs live and breathe the high-pressure lifestyle that comes with being a master chef, and each week someone is asked to "pack up their knives" and go home.
Once again returning to the kitchen, cookbook author, actress and host Padma Lakshmi presides over the judge's table alongside head judge Tom Colicchio, renowned culinary figure and chef/owner Craft Restaurants, and judges Gail Simmons, of Food & Wine magazine and Toby Young, food critic and best-selling author of the book "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People." Some of the top names in food, movies and entertainment including Wolfgang Puck, Todd English, Natalie Portman, Daniel Boulud, Penn & Teller, Hubert Keller, Laurent Tourondel, Tim Love, Michelle Bernstein, Tyler Florence, Charlie Palmer, Paul Bartolotta, Nigella Lawson, Jerome Bocuse and Thomas Keller will be featured this season on "Top Chef: Las Vegas." The M Resort Spa & Casino served as the production location for this sixth season. For a first look at the new season, go to: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/videos/its-time-for-the-first-quickfire.
The Emmy-nominated Magical Elves return to produce "Top Chef: Las Vegas." Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz ("Top Chef Masters," "Project Runway," "Top Design"), Liz Cook and Casey Kriley serve as executive producers. Nan Strait serves as co-executive producer.
Bravo is a program service of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, a division of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Bravo has been an NBC Universal cable network since December 2002 and was the first television service dedicated to film and the performing arts when it launched in December 1980. For more information, visit www.BravoTV.com. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BravoPR.
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