US based pizza chain Little Caesars activated its rights as an official partner of the NFL to hype the new season through an activation programme which spanned marketing, partnerships, promotions and charitable giving initiatives and was fronted by a kickoff ad campaign titled ‘Training Camp’.
Created by agency McKinney and sticking with the brand’s signature over-the-top, eclectic and comic creative approach and ‘crazier than most’ brand position, the campaign was fronted by ambassador and Super Bowl 56 winning LA Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford in an endorser tie-up which the brand’s SVP Of Marketing Greg Hamilton described as being based on a shared commitment to winning and quality linked the brand’s emphasis on value and convenience.
The creative idea is based around a training camp to prepare staff, fans and athletes for Little Caesars becoming the league’s official pizza partner and the 30-second hero TV commercial offers a humorous take on pre-season training camps with pizza delivery staff running football drills, fans taste-testing slices and Stafford practicing yelling out the brand’s signature ‘Pizza!Pizza!’ line.
The spot, which rolled out across television and online from 29 August, includes the copy: “Put on your helmet and open up your mouth because it’s pizza-football season with Little Caesars which is now the official pizza sponsor of the NFL.”
The hero spot was followed by a supporting set of social content deployed across the brand’s own digital platforms.
Little Caesars also rolled out a ‘Pizza!Pizza! Pregame promotion, beginning on 8 September, that offers football- and pizza-related prizes to fans when they order from the chain before games – including tickets to Super Bowl LVII. The promotion sets out to drive sales and help the chain build its bank of first-party consumer data.
While a purpose-driven activation strand sees the mobile ‘Little Caesars Love Kitchen’ begin touring US cities with NFL teams in a season-long tour – coinciding with flagship game match-ups – to serve pizzas to parts of those communities in need. Plus, the brand and the league will also make ‘significant monetary donations’ to provide ongoing support and battle food insecurity to these communities. The first of these on-the-ground activations took place on 7 September in Los Angeles during the LA Rams’ kickoff week activities.
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It was in June that Little Caesars (which claims to be the third largest pizza chain in the world) took over from Pizza Hut as the ‘official NFL pizza’ with a five-year partnership deal.
Indeed, this is just one of several new NFL partnerships this season as the league has refreshed several tie-ups on its huge sponsorship roster.
Several long-standing partners have tweaked their league deals. For example, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud Light remains the official NFL beer and hard seltzer sponsor but has given up its Super Bowl alcohol advertising monopoly (enabling competitors like Molson Coors to advertise during the Big Game for the first time in 33 years), while Pepsi remains the league’s official soft drink, but will no longer sponsor the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
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