2025 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 we all know nothing goes better with gaming than fast food.

The time was ripe for Pizza Hut to enter the conversation, getting in on this massive cultural opportunity and getting the brand in front of a whole new audience — gamers. Well, it was a whole new audience for Pizza Hut, not QSR.

Gamers and video games have been a focus of marketers for some time now. Ever since Wendy’s showed up in Fortnite, QSR brands have been trying to come up with unexpected ways for their products to shine in in-game experiences. Over time, these efforts have become more prolific, and research has proventhat gamers have become more wary of the disingenuous ways marketers are trying to influence them.

The Challenge: Get a whole new audience (gamers) to sit up, take notice, and start talking about Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut’s brand strategy is all about messing with culture, as long as the agency doesn’t take away from it. In this instance, that meant trying to innovate ways of playing in the world of gaming without changing the in-game experience at all. So, they took a big step back and looked at the environment gamers game instead, trying to find a relevant problem for Pizza Hut to solve.

Which is where they discovered a fun challenge to help gamers 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.

Their insight? A gaming console can heat up to 65ºC when playing; the exact recommended temperature for keeping pizza warm.

The Idea? Harness the heat of a PS5 to create the hottest console upgrade of the year: Pizza Hut's
“Pizza WRMR”.

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

Their plan of attack? Attachment. Field Upgrade. Finishing Move.

The agency’s comms plan mimicked the world their idea would come to life — the first-person
shooter game, CoD6.

Attachment: Something that you can add to a weapon to change its performance stats.

They added professional gamer, ZkMushroom. 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.

Field Upgrade: A piece of equipment or an ability that will give you some form of advantage.

They not only connected with gamers on Twitch, but they also showed pizza lovers how far the brand was willing to go to keep their pies hot — launching their content on all Pizza Hut’s organic channels, including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, as well as their CRM lists.

Finishing Move: A melee attack that kills an unsuspecting enemy.

All media directed their unsuspecting audiences to a landing page where they open-sourced their “Pizza WRMR” blueprints, which meant anyone with a 3D printer could now build their own warmer at home.

Spoiler alert: they did that, a lot.

In a world where gamers are becoming increasingly sensitive to brands messing with the sanctity of their games, strategic planning helped Pizza Hut identify the right way to show up. Instead of detracting from their in-game experience, they made their gaming environment more conducive to it. This disruption from traditional QSR activities in the gaming space helped transform Pizza Hut’s brand perception among this
key segment.

The “Pizza WRMR” became Pizza Hut Canada’s most successful campaign (ever!) in a matter of days.

The launch of “Pizza WRMR” generated $5.7 million in earned media.

With $0 spent in paid media, their earned results told an even bigger story — Pizza Hut had made its mark in gaming history with “Pizza WRMR” taking on a life of its own, spreading across the world like wildfire.

They beat Twitch’s record for minutes watched by more than 35.5% while smashing their click-through rates by more than 2000%. Beating these benchmarks is a tall order, and for “Pizza WRMR” to do so goes a long way in proving that they meaningfully engaged gamers in their own space.

In Canada alone, the campaign achieved 42.9 million earned impressions. Globally, they blew everyone’s mind by reaching over 100 countries and an audience of more than 1.141 billion, organically.

All in all, the simplicity of the idea, the level of innovation, and speaking gamers’ language worked together to help Pizza Hut go viral in the gaming industry and start building a long-term relationship with this
key audience.

Credits

Creative Agency: Leo Toronto
President: Ben Tarr
Managing Director, Account Service: 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