The Super Bowl is one of the “Big 5” days for pizza chains in the United States and as such, orders are fiercely contested.
Papa Johns, America’s third largest pizza take-out chain (behind Pizza Hut and Dominoes) is not only renowned for its “better ingredients, better Pizza” tagline but for the highly innovative way in which it infiltrates key moments in the big game.
During Super Bowl 45 for example, the chain offered free pizza to all its rewards members if the game went into overtime (a fair gamble since this has never happened in Super Bowl history). Papa Johns also randomly gave away $45 gift cards every 45 seconds of the game - (get it? 45 seconds? $45? Super Bowl 45?) – to people who ordered pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday.
The results were pretty impressive. Papa Johns sold more than a million pizzas on game day which is only about 200 000 shy of the 1.2m units which second place player Dominoes achieved. Most importantly, the promotion succeeded in dramatically increasing registrations on the chains’ loyalty program – a critical feature of any pizza delivery business in that it enables the capture and subsequent leverage of individualised data.
For Super Bowl 46, Papa Johns continued with the concept but played with the formula. This year, the giveaway was expanded to include a pizza and a free Pepsi Max 2 litre (spot the hidden partnership!) The only difference was the mechanic which this year centred on that most intriguing (and often highly superstitious) phenomenon of most team ball sports – the coin toss.
Again, to reap the benefits, customers had to visit papajohns.com and sign up for the rewards scheme. Then, to be in the running for a prize, the member had to vote which way the coin toss was going to go. If the majority of fans were correct, all members would get the freebie package. Pretty generous and as far as mechanics go, a simple as they come!
Other elements to the campaign included the following:
- A 30 second TV spot Peyton Manning staring the brother of Super Bowl winning quarterback Eli Manning; Jerome Bettis and Papa Johns CEO “Papa” Johns Schnatter. Apart from Schnatter, there was real method in this selection: Manning, out all year through injury, stars as the Umpire remarking “a man’s gotta work”. Bettis was some years ago, party to one of the biggest coin toss controversies in NFL history.
- An interactive website allowing consumers to register a rewards members and to vote on the coin-toss
- A presence on both Twitter (hashtag #freepapajohns) and Facebook
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