BACKGROUND

Everyone knows Pizza Hut, but surprisingly few people know they deliver.

Domino’s had become the nation’s default choice due to their media spend (3x more than Pizza Hut) meaning that Pizza Hut wasn’t even part of the conversation.

We needed to change consumers consideration set and position ourselves as a credible alternative in the category.

We knew that of the 4.85m people visiting Domino’s website, only 23% were also visiting Pizza Hut’s. The big opportunity for us to was to create more promiscuity in the category. To cut through with our comparatively small budget, we needed to bring the fight and go head-to-head with Domino’s.

THE IDEA

We were coming late to the “delivery” party. So we needed to not just match our competitor but leapfrog them in terms of our offering. We needed to over-deliver.

‘Now That’s Delivering’ was about setting out Pizza Hut’s stall, showcasing their USPs and setting a new level of expectation for what pizza delivery could and should be.

THE STRATEGY

In order to grow, Domino’s were focusing on more and more functional occasions (empty fridge / don’t want to cook / need food fast), but this was positioning pizza mundane and ‘everyday’. Our research showed that, conversely, for families, pizza is still a special, emotional experience.

By championing this and showing the special attention we pay to delivering for their “special moment”, we could differentiate and elevate ourselves above Domino’s.

Given people were automatically defaulting to Domino’s, we needed to be bold and deliver a strategy and idea that would help us cut through at that decision-making moment. Picking a direct fight with our competitor made strong commercial sense.

THE EXECUTION

To launch Now That’s Delivering, we created a provocative film for social and online that literally knocked Domino’s offering in comparison to what Pizza Hut deliver. Set against a backdrop of toppling dominoes, our charismatic spokesman told viewers that Pizza Hut not only deliver restaurant quality pizzas, but listed every compelling reward and service that made Pizza Hut better than Domino’s.

RESULTS

After just 6 weeks, the campaign had achieved over 6 million views with an 80% average view-through rate (against a benchmark of 17.5%), with 85% positive sentiment. Most impressively, 2.1 million views were organic (35% of total).

Critically, we were able to see the campaign’s impact on sales almost instantly. In a period when category demand had dropped dramatically, the campaign drove an average uplift of 5.4% sales growth year-on-year, with one day delivering an unprecedented 109% uplift. It’s Pizza Hut’s most successful campaign ever.

What’s more, attribution modelling has validated the move from broadcast to targeted digital comms, which have delivered 3.75 times greater sales uplift than TV had previously.