Ventriloquist Puppet Speaks to Your Inner Dark Side in Latest From Yarn and HELL Pizza

A ventriloquist puppet, an engagement ring, and the ashes of a beloved family pet: These are the key ingredients of HELL Pizza’s new brand platform.

Cooked up by indie agency Yarn and directed by James Anderson, the ‘Worth Going to HELL For’ campaign launch film presents an alternative to the hefty price tag of a traditional engagement ring: a lab-made memorial diamond made from cremated ashes.

“The best HELL Pizza campaigns have always been a perfect blend of shock and substance,” Rich Robson, executive creative director and co-founder at The Yarn Agency, told LBB.

Rich added that “it’s not about creating controversy for the sake of it,” and that if you look past “all the irreverence and perceived darkness of the brand, there’s actually a company with a lot of integrity that isn’t afraid to stand up for what it believes in.”

The engagement ring script is the perfect example of using darker themes to highlight the brand’s values.

“A memorial diamond made from Paul’s future wife’s dead dog might at first sound evil. But when you think about it, an industry that pressures young people into paying obscene amounts of money for diamonds that carry environmental and humanitarian consequences, is arguably even more evil,” said Rich.

At the heart of the campaign is a fully functional ventriloquist puppet made in collaboration with renowned puppet maker Paul Lewis, who Rich said was “was brilliant from the moment we met him.” Paul has worked on titles such as 'M3GAN', 'Sweet Tooth', 'The Rule of Jenny Pen', and the upcoming 'Minecraft' movie.

As Rich said, what better way to dramatise that inner voice that tells you that you deserve a treat once in a while (without feeling guilty for it) than a ventriloquist puppet?

“The brief was to take inspiration from the likes of 'Chucky', 'Annabelle' and even that freaky clown puppet from 'Saw', to create an ownable, sinister, and fully functioning ventriloquist character,” said Rich.

“We had already used AI to visualise the kind of character we were after, except our intention was to create something that resembled our lead actor. However, after progressing with development, we all ultimately felt that the doll didn’t have the same level of mischievousness as the original AI designs. So in the 11th hour, we changed direction and created the doll you see today. Paul did an amazing job and we’re all stoked with how it turned out.”

This will be just the beginning for the puppet, with Rich laughing, “We’ve created a bit of a monster that’s not afraid to challenge the status quo or say what everyone’s too scared to say, so there’s a lot of scope for future antics.”

With the campaign heading out into the world, HELL’s marketing director, Stephanie Quantrill, said she is “equal parts nervous and proud” of the new brand platform. “It's been such a labour of love, I want everyone else to feel the same about it.”

“HELL seems to be able to do and say things that other brands can't -and that's something pretty awesome when you're a marketer," she said.

"We wanted to harness that freedom of expression, but in a way that was more grown up than the HELL of 20 years ago."

The 'Worth Going To HELL For' campaign launches this week across broadcast TV, online video, outdoor, digital, and social media.