Mr. Pizza is Korea’s largest pizza chain, and it had plans to expand into the US. However, most Americans had never heard of the brand or likely ever considered a pizza company from Asia. Our aim was to build US awareness and interest by surrounding consumers with a motivating story that was reinforced by peers, cultural influencers and mainstream media. We would then leverage buzz and excitement in the US market to improve the chain’s progressive image back in Korea.To accomplish this, we created an online documentary exploring a made-up theory that pizza was invented in Korea and stolen by the Italian explorer Marco Polo in the 13th century. We carefully orchestrated the rollout of the story:- An initial guerilla campaign on the streets let audiences discover the content in a natural way, leading to social media buzz.- We seeded videos to pop-culture blogs who would be attracted to the funny and entertaining video content.- We levered up and down aspects of the story and community comments to drive cultural debate, resulting in Asian culture blogger coverage.- Mainstream media was tipped off as views of the documentary skyrocketed, giving us mass-market exposure in newspapers and on TV news.The quality of the content and the subtlety of the branding ensured a successful PR push for the campaign. The documentary went viral, clocking up 2.2m views, earning 2m dollars in unpaid media impressions and giving the client a 1,600% return on investment.

The heart of the campaign was an aggressive 1-month push to generate as much engagement around the story as possible, maximising the chances that it would find a life of its own. We worked with a social video distribution partner to power the unbranded seeding and popular culture media outreach. We also launched extensive social media monitoring here in the US, and partnered with a Korean agency to identify and measure uptick in Korean media. We watched the level and sentiment of activity closely so we could 'stir the pot' by turning on and off certain properties. Once the organic growth reached its peak we announced the brand’s purpose with an exclusive in AdWeek.

The documentary went viral, clocking up 2.2m views, evenly split between the US and Asia. We achieved our objectives of generating massive amounts of conversation in influencer communities. We were able to get hundreds of popular culture blogs to amplify our message, and reach all the way to the Wall Street Journal and international broadcast news coverage to turn the story global from the US to Korea.We also started a huge online debate, with thousands of passionate comments and blog posts about Korean national identity, disputed history and the role of satire in Korean humor. The campaign was praised in both Korea and the US for its sophisticated satirical approach and attention to detail, a rarity in this category.The campaign earned 2m dollars worth of earned media impressions, giving the client a 1,600% return on their investment.