In the last few years the Pride movement was marked by outstandingly growing participation: millions of people attend Pride parades worldwide and thousands of international brands show their support for the LGBT+ community. But if supporting the Pride is surely a great opportunity for brands to show adherence to important values, on the other hand there’s a need to take relevant stances on such topics. Willing to go beyond a plain sponsorship routine, Just Eat wanted to support Milan Pride with a value-driven integrated campaign, by taking a stance for the LGBT+ community in a socially relevant and brand-consistent way, showing that prejudice can have different shapes, and it’s able to affect even the most liberal minds. And if there is one topic that Italian people tend to respond to with prejudice reactions very similar to homophobic ones, it is certainly food.

Since the moment of its creation, pineapple pizza was met with mockery at best by the vast majority of people from all over the world. And in the motherland of pizza, the specialty has been received by many as an open offense to tradition, with remarks that closely resemble homophobic slurs. Based on these disproportioned reactions, we identified in pineapple pizza the perfect symbol to show how hate can hide in plain sight, affecting even liberal minds when they instinctively refuse to accept something that they think deviates from dogma. The idea was to humanize pineapple and pizza and tell their love story, allowing people to shift their perspectives and realize that discrimination, at its core, is always wrong and freedom of choice should be a guiding principle whether we talk about food, sexual orientation and pretty much everything else in life.

Just Eat’s brand identity is very much focused on freedom of choice, particularly when it comes to indulging in the food we love without feeling guilty. The strategic challenge was to highlight these values on a higher, socially relevant level, by supporting the LGBT+ community at Milan Pride.

Prejudice can manifest in many forms: some of them particularly dangerous because they might seem harmless. The strategy at the core of Just Amore had the goal of shifting Italian people’s perceptions on discrimination, making them realize the fight for freedom is not won already, because discrimination can hide in plain sight. That is why the story of pineapple and pizza is conceived to be particularly relevant for a liberal-thinking target with the goal of making people think they might not be as prejudice-free as they believe and should never let their guard down.

Just Amore was launched with a short animated film showing the troubled love story between Pineapple and Pizza. After falling for each other, mockery and judgement stand in their way and the two struggle to keep their love alive in a world filled with prejudice.

In the following days, the campaign took over the Milan Pride District. Porta Venezia subway station became the stage where our love story came to life on a 300 mt long billboard, highlighting special moments of the couple and further supporting the LGBT+ community with messages inspired by historical Pride slogans. Finally, during the days of the event, Pineapple and Pizza became symbols printed on special tees given to Milan Pride participants, allowing them to embody the spirit of Just Amore and show the world that no match is a wrong match.

With 2.040.215 views, 27.767 interactions and a total of 13.582.394 impressions the animated film represented the spark that started a debate in which the discussion on culinary tradition became an opportunity for a deeper reflection on the issues of discrimination.

The campaign got outstanding media coverage by the major national press and the main online blogs linked to the LGBT+ community.

Throughout the campaign life cycle we witnessed an evident change in terms of sentiment, culminating in the days of Milan Pride with a widespread awareness on the value of freedom of choice. Pineapple pizza was even distributed by very traditional pizzerias to support the Milan LGBT+ community during the Pride month.

Just Amore went beyond the boundaries of the main event, recently becoming an educational tool for anti-discrimination classes in different Italian schools.