2026 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

As of 2024, the gaming industry was valued at $455 billion, no longer making it just a dominant force in entertainment but a huge part of culture. And they all know nothing goes better with gaming than a slice of pizza.

The time was ripe for Pizza Hut to enter the conversation, getting in on this massive cultural opportunity and getting us in front of an untapped audience – gamers.

But there was a seemingly impossible challenge to overcome: the longer you’re distracted gaming, the colder your pizza gets. But right in front of gamers’ eyes, and right within reach, there’s been an untapped resource this whole time emitting the very heat their pizza slices needed.

Because two things are true: the longer you game, the colder your pizza gets and the longer you game, the hotter your console gets.

So, they used the hot console problem to solve the cold pizza problem.

A gaming console can heat up to 65°C when playing, the exact recommended temperature for keeping pizza warm.

The agency harnessed the heat of a PS5 to create the hottest console upgrade of the year: The Pizza Hut “Pizza WRMR”.

It’s a one-of-a-kind, open-source, 3D printable innovation that turns your console into a convection pizza oven – channelling hot air coming out of a PS5 into a custom enclosure to keep pies at the perfect temperature.

They timed the product drop to coincide with the hottest game release of the year, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, knowing gamers would be eager to spend hours gaming and heating up their consoles. To spread the word, the brand partnered with ZkMushroom, one of the top C.O.D. players on Twitch, whose followers weren’t going to miss him playing the most anticipated game of the franchise in recent years.

They not only connected with gamers on Twitch, but also showed pizza lovers just how far they were willing to go to keep their pies hot – launching the content on all of Pizza Hut’s organic channels, including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, as well as their mailing lists. All media directed the audience to a landing page where they provided more details about the warmer and offered up the blueprint as a free download to all visitors.

“The Pizza WRMR” became a talking point in gaming, tech, and fast-food culture as it was a functional, real-world innovation that resonated with players. It was also completely open source, allowing gamers to edit the plans and make their own customizations, driving further innovation and relevance within popular culture and the gaming community. Gamers worldwide buzzed about it online, and they successfully kept the conversation going organically for over three months, all with zero media spend.

When the campaign went live on Twitch, they surpassed the platform’s benchmark for views and minutes watched by more than 22% while smashing their click-through rates by more than 2000%.

Through this launch, they began to capture and win over the hearts of the internet and gamers alike. In Canada alone, the campaign achieved 29.1 million impressions, meaning 72.5% of Canadians saw it. Globally, they reached an audience of over 1.141 billion.

In the end, they recorded over 7,700 downloads of the blueprint and even won over a few skeptical video bloggers, who printed the “Pizza WRMR” and shared their findings with their subscribers. And to paraphrase their conclusions, “It worked.”

All these achievements were unlocked with $0 spent on media, thanks to all the gamers who fell in love with the idea and made Pizza Hut their go-to pizza place of choice.

Credits

Creative Agency: Leo Toronto
President: Ben Tarr
Managing Director: Natasha Dagenais
Chief Strategy Officer: Tahir Ahmad
Chief Creative Officer: Steve Persico
Executive Creative Director: Kohl Forsberg
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Jerry Yang
Senior Copywriter: Michael Carey
Group Account Director: Scott Lyons
Account Director: Krzysztof Iwanicki
Account Executive: Vanessa Niragira
Integrated Project Manager: Jessica Rinaldi
SVP, Group Strategy Director: Ryan Roberts
Group Strategy Director: Pooja Beri
Senior Strategist: Aleeza Yermus
Executive Producer: Kali Kyriazis
Executive Producer: Janice Rebelo
VP, Post & Print Production: Gord Cathmoir
Manager, Print Production and Studio: Kevin Stephen
VP, Director Creative Technology: Felix Wardene
Digital Project Director: Thomas Degez
Web Developer: David Freedman
Editor: Raquel Velasquez
Editor/Motion Designer: Peter Guzda
VP, Development and Communications: Richard Newman
PR Lead, Publicis Groupe Canada: Sophie Prefol

Production House: The Pub Production
Executive Producer: Terry Theofilactidis
Director/DOP: Reid Marshall
Food Stylist: Nicole Young
Line Producer: Tyler Reid

Industrial Design & 3D Printing: Objex Unlimited
PR: Edelman
Media Agency: Wavemaker
Social Media Management: Diamond Marketing Group

Client: Pizza Hut Canada
President & General Manager: Daniel Meynen
Chief Brand Officer: Jennifer Ligotti
Marketing Director: Devon Lawrence
Marketing Director: Neil Littler
Marketing Manager: Daniela Di Vito
Marketing Manager: Amanda Ardizzi
Innovation Manager: Kaela Lewis