At the time there was a craze on Hong Kong social media for seeing “faces” in things. In clouds and cow markings, on walls etc etc!

USELESS FACT: This is called “Face Pareidolia” (psychological tendency to see faces in objects). It was crazy, even by internet standards - and the internet still thinks JFK is alive…

So we hijacked this craze. Using our own pizza boxes as media. When people opened their pizza boxes, instead of normal cheese stains, they saw one that looked like a face? We stoked this conversation by having other figures in the entertainment industry say it looked a BIT like Neo…

As the buzz grew, the discussion that the face looked A LOT like Neo soon became a hot topic online. At this point we fanned the flames by having Neo share the man-in-a-box image on his own Instagram which garnered over 36,000 likes.

In order to make the brand more appealing to a younger demographic, we used the medium that they are most at home on – social. And instead of spending a fortune on a simple announcement, we created a conversation that people wanted to be a part of, and one that used the internet for what it is good at: speculation about random nonsense! The unveiling was launched on Instagram and Facebook, the places our target audience of 25-34 years olds spend most of their time.

Our unveiling was very ‘in your face’, literally and figuratively – by delivering pizza boxes with cheese stains resembling a man’s face, we created a hot topic online. And then steered the conversation towards what we wanted to talk about: our new ambassador, who was unveiled in a TVC at the climax of the campaign.

The campaign drove +40% increase in sales growth for My Box, and +314% increase in fan growth on Pizza Hut’s Instagram, along with +92.5% increase in total organic reach and +147% increase in total organic engagement. Neo’s final post garnered over 36,000 likes and organic comments from different celebrities and young audiences. The idea inspired “Big Waster”, a local government social page, to create a copycat execution as the campaign entered general conversation.