2022 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

The year Little Caesars became the Official Pizza of the NHL for the 2020/21 season was a little different. With no Canadian fans in the stands, they needed to move beyond the expected rink board and connect with pizza-loving hockey fans authentically.

Friday and Saturday nights were already solid sales nights. And they knew they didn’t have enough budget to drive awareness from Sunday to Thursday. So, they decided to focus their efforts on one night of the week, bringing the thrill of being at an arena to people’s homes every Wednesday in an engaging way born of fan culture and the Little Caesars brand. If they could turn Wednesday night into the best night of the week for hockey (and pizza) fans and boost their delivery service while they did it, the program would be a success.

Introducing Pizza Night Hockey: all the excitement of the arena experience, brought to your home every Wednesday.

Launching on February 17, 2021, their first campaign element, “Naming Rights”, invited consumers to sell the rights to their living room, basement, or wherever they enjoy the game by signing a not-legally-binding contract on pizzanighthockey.ca. Once signed, Canadians gained access to exclusive deals for every remaining Pizza Night Hockey of the 2020/21 season.

Then, they expanded their presence in Little Caesars Hockey Rooms across the country. Through social media, the brand gave fans the opportunity to ‘renegotiate’ their contracts. These real-time digital auctions allowed fans to name their price – in pizza – to add absurd Little Caesars branding in their home. Live and hilarious negotiations saw fans offer up the naming rights to their dogs, their entire
homes, even their kids.

Finally, between March 17 and April 22, every box sold on Wednesday came with a “seat number” and a unique registration code. Consumers were able to use their codes to go online for a chance to score instant prizes and weekly grand prizes from Little Caesars and NHLShop.ca. Then, they could tune in on Wednesday nights for the featured NHL game where they would announce the grand prize winner live on
the broadcast, just like at a live game.

Little Caesars saw a 21% increase in Wednesday store traffic, a 15% increase in sales, and a 10% increase in delivery. On social media, they saw an astronomical increase of 8.6x in follower growth and an incredible 17.7% of overall engagement on their platforms. And, as a nice feather in any Canadian marketer’s cap, the successful kick-off of Pizza Night Hockey in Canada resulted in it being adapted by
the Little Caesars U.S. team.

Credits

EVP, General Manager Chris Perron
Account Director Adam Eliesen
Account Executive, Ellen Fitzhugh
Chief Creative Officer, Dave Federico
Chief Creative Officer, Josh Budd
Associate Creative Director, Dylan Wagman
Associate Creative Director, James Leake
Associate Creative Director, Ryan D'zur
Associate Creative Director, Sam Cote
Art Director, Ryan D'zur
Copywriter, Sam Cote
VP Strategy, Zach Klein
Strategic Director, Jay Fleming
Junior Digital Strategist, Laith Goldie
PR Director, Erin Banting
PR Manager, Jessica Hoffedlt
PF Account Executive Nick Wong