Did you know that Americans eat nearly 350 slices of pizza per second? And, 90% purchase pizza from ‘Delivery Giants’ like Domino’s and Pizza Hut.
DiGiorno® is a leader in the frozen pizza category. While pizza is one of the top selling categories in frozen food, it represents just 10% of the pizza market.
25 years ago, DiGiorno took on the ‘Delivery Giants’ using the famous tagline “It’s Not Delivery, It’s DiGiorno”. This approach was successful, but tapered off over time.
Now, Generation Y and Z are the primary growth audiences, and we are just another frozen pizza brand to them. The ‘Delivery Giants’ are intensely focused on connecting with these young, multicultural audiences using massive budgets. Competition remains fierce with new players emerging, such as mega-popular Barstool Sports.
DiGiorno needed to grab a bigger piece of the pie (pardon the pun). With the exciting launch of DiGiorno’s Fully Stuffed Crust Pizza later in the year, we had an exciting innovation to set us apart. But how could we break through when the ‘Delivery Giants’ outspend us 10 to 1? David vs Goliath?
We needed to drive brand relevance and cultural connection during key times to win purchase occasions.
The ‘Delivery Giants’ were missing two critical insights to connect with Generation Y and Z.
First, TikTok was still considered experimental in the marketing world and the Delivery Giants had largely stayed off the platform. With TikTok’s impact on culture and younger audiences active there, there was no better platform to drive brand relevance and cultural connection. In fact, 71% of users believe the biggest trends start on TikTok. The reduced competitive presence offered an opportunity to reach our audiences more effectively, even with much lower budgets.
Second, the category historically used functional messaging. If we wanted to break through, we needed to do something different. 79% of Generation Y and Z want to be entertained by brands first before purchasing. We needed to stop selling in order to drive sales.
Activating on TikTok meant we needed to lean into the power of sound. And what’s better than music? TikTok users agree - with 68% remembering brands better when content utilized a song they like. More importantly, content that utilizes custom music results in even higher recall and brand recognition.
It was time to stop being salesy and try something new: be wholly entertainment-focused. Rooted in the whitespace we discovered the power of music on TikTok. We decided to create an original musical anthem to capture our consumers’ attention and stand out in their feeds.
We developed “Rise,” a cross-genre anthemic musical album focused on empowering people to rise up and make their life - and everyday eating occasions - awesome! This is also a double entendre because our pizza is famous for its rising crust.
Because all TikTokers can utilize original audio and make it their own, songs give others the opportunity to join in on the fun. This means we could speak (as well as sing and rap) with our Generation Y and Z audiences - not at them.
There is no one better to do this than passionate DiGiorno fans who were also popular TikTok influencers known for their musical songs and skits. We partnered with Kyle Exum, a TikToker and DiGiorno lover. Together, we co-created a custom song called “DiGiorno Made Us Do It” that naturally integrated what Kyle loved about our pizza into a catchy tune.
We then tapped 7 other influencers to use Kyle’s original audio. They showed their own take on how DiGiorno makes everything better - elevating the mundane to something awesome.
Each influencer strategically launched during key pulse periods (i.e. Big Game, March Madness) to drive purchase during big ‘Delivery Giant’ occasions.
We knew we were onto something once we saw views skyrocket and consumers commenting. Six months later, we dropped a whole album celebrating DiGiorno’s Fully Stuffed Crust pizza innovation. To appeal to a broader audience, we enlisted six influencers to create DiGiorno-inspired songs from Opera to Indie Rock and Hip Hop to Pop.
We amplified the influencer's content (literally) with paid media to reach a wider audience around the universally shared love of pizza paired with some great tunes.
We achieved (and exceeded!) our objectives. Generating the #1 ROAS for Food and Beverage advertisers on TikTok ($4.89), DiGiorno saw a 3.1%+ sales lift. We inspired ‘Delivery Giant’ consumers to purchase DiGiorno with new buyers' sales increasing 13%.
The campaign generated 216M impressions, 209M views, and 11.5% ER (55% above benchmark), even earning a VTR 17% higher than the industry median benchmark. The sales were supported by a CTR 20% above industry median.
Brand awareness boosted 3.6% and consumer attitudes towards DiGiorno improved by 6.8%, demonstrating our success in driving brand relevance and cultural connection.
