Who: General Mills’ Pizza Pops brand, with Cossette.
What: A new online contest and interactive campaign called the “Pizza Pops all you should probably eat in a year” contest.
When & Where: Digital ads are driving people to AllYouShouldProbablyEatPizzaPops.com, where they are invited to enter the contest for the chance to win a year’s supply (or “all you should probably eat in a year”) of the snack. The digital ad campaign ended on July 5, but the contest will continue until someone finds the correct URL (update: someone determined the correct URL on Monday).
Why: It’s part of a content strategy aimed at “bringing weird to the world” in a variety of guises as part of its “Weird good” brand positioning.
How: The new contest is billed as a “digital scavenger hunt” with contestants invited to guess the URL of a dedicated landing page that is “hidden in the vastness of the internet.”
Users are asked to fill in what they suspect the URL might be, with straightforward responses like FreePizzaPops.com and IWonFreePizzaPops.com directing to a page responding to their attempt.
According to a release, the actual URL was so secret that it was never even discussed with Cossette’s creative team.
What’s this “weird” content strategy all about? It’s the kind of interactive and shareable stuff that resonates with digital natives. When General Mills introduced the positioning last year, it also said Pizza Pops themselves are kind of weird: not a pizza but not quite a calzone.
Pizza Pops recently introduced the ability to Facetime with a Pizza Pop (which chatted with users from a kitchen, a basement and a bathroom) and also ran unbranded banner ads featuring oddball images with an invitation to click for a chance to win free product.
“Everyone has been struggling with isolation over the past few months [and] if Pizza Pops can help cure a little boredom, then that’s a win,” said Craig McIntosh, Cossette’s executive creative director.
And we quote: “Our dudes have always loved that we celebrate the fact that weird can be cool. We believe our role is to entertain in a way that is genuine and true to our brand.” — Liana Condotta, marketing communications manager, Pizza Pops.
