December is Pizza Hut Malaysia’s Cheesy Poppers Pizza season. This year, it coincided with the 2022 FIFA World Cup, where conventional ad spaces were cluttered with promos from F&B brands and official sponsors. We knew we had to do something different to set ourselves apart from our competitors and the overwhelming media frenzy. So, our challenge was to make Pizza Hut a significant part of the football chatter and establish its relevance while driving sales.

The Cheese Codes campaign was a game-changer during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, targeting a captive audience of gamers through collaboration with the world's top mobile football games. The creative idea was to change the playing field and play the game where gamers played it, offering a non-intrusive, real-time ordering service that satisfied their cravings during the most exciting moments of the tournament. The campaign's unique codes, which combined pizza toppings with renowned football stars, were dropped on in-game A-boards whenever a player scored live on TV during a World Cup match. With just a tap on the board, gamers could conveniently redeem special pizza combos.

To stand out in a cluttered media landscape during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, we asked ourselves: where else can we reach football fans besides the usual media spaces? Our answer: mobile football games, with over 1.2 million active football gamers.

While our competitors relied on traditional advertising methods, we took a different approach to capture more screen time and share of voice (almost 100%) with fewer expenses. But we knew that gamers are also selective about who they allow into their territory, so we had to execute our campaign in a non-intrusive way.

By integrating our unique pizza codes into the A-boards of popular football games, we allowed gamers to play their favourite teams while conveniently ordering and redeeming special offers with just a tap.

As the World Cup progressed, we concurrently tracked the scheduled dates of live games for quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals, and shortlisted codes that would potentially be used for each game. We dropped a code each time a player scored during live broadcasts. Fans could tap on the code displayed on the A-boards in-game and be redirected to the Pizza Hut website, where they can then use the codes to redeem pizza combos.

Campaign Period: 25 days

Placement: Inside the world's top mobile games - FIFA Mobile, Football Manager, Top Eleven

Scale: Malaysia

A winning play that boosted positive brand sentiment and reached a new audience with more attention and engagement than traditional media spaces could ever hope to achieve. Pizza Hut's Cheese Codes proved that the key to winning over a tough crowd is by delivering a seamless and unique experience.

Sales: Increased by 14%

Impressions: 8.4 Million

Active Gaming Hours: Over 100k Hours

Reach: 1.1 Million

Interactions: 1 Million

Unique Site Visits: +18%