Blue Barracuda creates ‘Hungry for Action’ initiative with microsite, Facebook game, social media marketing, eCRM and online advertising

Blue Barracuda creates ‘Hungry for Action’ initiative with microsite, Facebook game, social media marketing, eCRM and online advertising

Pizza Hut has been using digital media to promote its tie up with this Summer’s blockbuster cinema release, ‘The A Team’ from Twentieth Century Fox.

Independent digital agency, Blue Barracuda, has produced a microsite, Facebook game and online marketing campaign to promote the partnership, encourage film fans to engage with the Pizza Hut brand, and drive orders for delivery. The campaign will promote four new pizzas from Pizza Hut: the ‘Cheesy Faceman Pizza’, the ‘Howling Mad Veggie Pizza’, the ‘B.A. Meat Machine Pizza’ and the ‘Hannibal Hot Pizza’.

The game uses a pixel art illustration and animation, and is built on the established platform Blue Barracuda created for the last Pizza Hut Facebook game, Pass it around pizza. It features the same team pizza-sharing mechanic with branded content associated with the film and a Pizza Hut look and feel. Players have to beat off the American army and collect pizza slices from the new pizza range, which are then posted to their Facebook wall, enabling them to enter a draw to win prizes including an active holiday to Turkey for four and an ‘A Team’ action day with three friends. Players’ Facebook friends can click on Facebook pizza slices to participate in the game, designed to appeal to men and women of all ages. Sharing pizzas with Facebook friends increases the chances of winning. Participants also receive a voucher code for money off Pizza Hut deliveries.

Spreading the word

Blue Barracuda will promote the game with social media, and an online advertising campaign, planned on media including Bauer’s Kiss, Facebook and ExchangeLabs, integrated with a radio advertising campaign booked by Starcom. The advertising will be time and geo-targeted and visitors will be retargeted with messaging designed to encourage them to return to the game and to place an order for pizza delivery, supported by email, SMS activity and affiliate marketing. The creative, in five formats, features assets from the film and the game characters with the strapline, ‘Hungry for action? Introducing a brand new ‘A Team’ of pizzas.’ Viewers can clickthrough to play the game, connect with friends on Facebook, become a Facebook Fan and place an order for delivery or collection from Pizza Hut.

Murray Willows, chief marketing officer at Pizza Hut, explained: ‘We have created a range of new pizzas to promote our partnership with this summer’s blockbuster action film, ‘The A Team’ and the game is the perfect way to engage consumers. We liked the retro design of the last game Blue Barracuda created, the football-themed Pass it around pizza, which was incredibly successful, generating over a quarter of a million plays and counting. The ‘Hungry for Action‘ game will extend the association with the film beyond the campaign window to continue driving brand engagement through the social channel. We use Facebook to interact with our consumers as 92% of our Pizza Hut customers are active Facebook users.”

Martin Talks, chief executive of Blue Barracuda, added: “This chequered pixel art game is inclusive and friendly. Highly addictive and quick to play, it is designed to appeal to both men and women of all ages, especially since women are more likely to play games on Facebook. Pizza Hut and movies go so well together and this campaign will engage with film and pizza fans, cinema-goers and game players and capture data to be used for future CRM [customer relationship management] activity, as well as encouraging them to order a hot pizza delivered to their door. We are integrating several different communication channels, including social media and email, to reach this audience and promote the association with ‘The A Team’.”

Proven multimedia partners

Independent digital agency Blue Barracuda conceived of, created and planned and bought online media for the game, advertising and marketing activity for the ‘Hungry for Action’ campaign, while The Linney Group created the instore, leaflet and box print design.

The campaign builds on the success of Blue Barracuda’s Pass it around pizza game and an online advertising initiative to promote Pizza Hut’s £4.99 lunchtime buffet which used time targeted, demographically targeted, geo-targeted, contextually targeted and behaviourally targeted media to reach office workers as they began to think about lunch and encourage them to get together for a sociable weekday lunch. This used Facebook Connect to enable colleagues to arrange to meet and Google maps to show nearby branches of Pizza Hut.

Blue Barracuda is retained by Pizza Hut to plan and manage the restaurant and Pizza hut delivery’s digital strategy including online media planning and buying, search, affiliate and social media marketing and Pizza Hut’s CRM system. The agency is also responsible for the design and build of the food chain’s website.