The key market demographic of Malaysian teenagers and young adults weren’t ordering delivery from Pizza Hut. Aware that youth rarely engage with traditional media, Pizza Hut decided to reach out to them directly on mobile; the platform through which they are always available, and that they can use to immediately order pizza delivery.

We knew we had to reach them on their mobile phones, and do it in a fun and relatable way.

The Emoji Stories allowed Pizza Hut to take advantage of the pizza emoji in a standard emoji pack by creating brand association with it in a natural way. The pizza emoji was already there in most smartphones, and by using it as part of our Emoji Stories, we made “pizza” mean “Pizza Hut”.

The campaign is an ongoing effort for Pizza Hut to tactically drive delivery sales during non-campaign periods between new product innovation launches and promotions.

The Emoji Stories are being implemented in waves. In each wave, 5,000 Emoji Stories are sent out via SMS over a period of 4 weeks. Potential customers are targeted based on demographic information and proximity to Pizza Hut delivery outlets to minimize dropouts.

Customers who responded positively to the Emoji Stories were re-enrolled for subsequent waves, with a gap of 2 weeks minimum in between, and fresh Emoji Stories to avoid fatigue.

The Story Behind Every Box posters helped Pizza Hut Delivery to recapture the target market.

The use of the Pizza Hut boxes in the composition of these stories was not only to create a bold, striking effect, but also to remain brand-relevant, as the promotional art is made of the same material as the product packaging.