PizzaExpress - Earn Your Stripes

THE CHALLENGE

How can PizzaExpress ‘own’ National Pizza Day & outperform the competition in terms of share of voice, to ultimately drive consideration for PizzaExpress (& drive people into restaurant on a weekday lunchtime)?

THE APPROACH

Shine a spotlight on PizzaExpress’ iconic brand ingredients and leverage brand (and audience) passions of music, food & style to drive advocacy, brand love and differentiation.

THE SOLUTION

‘Earn Your Stripes’: For one day only, in homage to the iconic PizzaExpress uniform, anyone turning up to a restaurant wearing a black & white striped top could claim a pizza on the house.​

Photography of people queuing & eating in their stripes was captured and seeded out to media plus shared on the PizzaExpress social channels, while influencers were sent mailers & encouraged to share.

THE IMPACT

PizzaExpress’ social share of voice doubled this National Pizza Day & they overtook Domino’s as the most talked-about pizza brand on social media in the UK.​

​In earned media, the brand also held the majority share-of-voice (25% more than our closest competitor PizzaHut), making PEX the most visible pizza brand in earned media.​

​The activation saw a ‘breakout’ increase for ‘Pizza Express National Pizza Day’ searches (Google saw a +5000% increase in searches for this term.)​

​Plus, 10,000 people across the UK turned up wearing their stripes and claimed their free pizzas, driving a notable incremental lunchtime trade.

THE RESULTS

1.59M COVERAGE VIEWS

57% SOV

25M SOCIAL MEDIA REACH

10K PEOPLE DRESSED IN STRIPES & CLAIMED A FREE PIZZA