Little Caesars Fans Get in a Twist for Return of Pretzel Crust

Little Caesars’ fan-favourite Pretzel Crust is back, and no, it wasn't an April Fool’s Joke. To make it official, the pizza brand’s creative AOR, McKinney, pulled a little social stunt to keep the fans on their toes.

Everyday, Little Caesars receives comments begging for the return of the Pretzel Crust, pushing the social manager to the brink. Last week, they finally caved in, posting the contact info of the VP of menu innovation, Alex Hartfield, on Instagram and X, urging followers to call and ask for the Pretzel Crust themselves — spoiler alert: Alex Hartfield isn’t real. The number directed consumers to a voicemail which received over 130 voicemails and 33 texts, causing the number to crash twice due to the volume of calls. The email, which was created to supplement the first phone number crash, also received 55 emails. McKinney also created a fake LinkedIn profile for Alex, casting him as the heroic and professional brand representative.

Following the post of Alex’s information, the Little Caesars’ social media manager posted a real-time crash out across the brand’s social pages — airing out all their intrusive thoughts about how wild Little Caesars fans are for the Pretzel Crust. After several hours of going off the rails, corporate was finally able to gain back control of the accounts, removing all the previous posts from the social media manager, issuing a public apology for the incident and acknowledging the love fans have for the Pretzel Crust.

Taking it one step further, Little Caesars released footage from a 'press conference' where Alex Hartfield, VP of menu innovation, delivered a formal statement and apology with the official announcement that the Pretzel Crust is back starting on April 7th.

The stunt exceeded benchmarks with over 2.1M impressions and 87,500 engagements across Instagram and X, and the 'apology' post alone received over 1.2M views on Instagram and 725K impressions on X — all organic, too.

Little Caesars has been transforming the flood of voicemails from loyal pretzel fans into some new 'hope core' style IG posts this week.