This was our first year being the Official Pizza Sponsor of the NFL. A BIG moment for Little Caesars. And a BIG opportunity to show we’re not just an outlier pizza company, but we deserve to be on the field.

The thing is, we weren’t the first pizza company to hold this title. Heck, we weren’t even the second. Both Papa John’s and Pizza Hut had previously been sponsors. And it’s not like Domino’s wasn’t advertising during games. All this meant two things: 1. We had to lean into our brand’s humor and to do this sponsorship in a way no other pizza brand could and 2. We had an uphill battle in getting people to associate us with football.

With those things in mind, we set off to sell pizza during the football season and get people to see our brand in a different way.

There’s a time in every young person’s life when their parents sit them down and give them the talk – the “Sponsorship talk”. Oh, that doesn’t happen? Well, for advertising sake it does. This spot tells the story of a dad and a son sitting down to watch some football, eat some Little Caesars pizza, and have “the talk.” Because understanding big brand sponsorships is hard, so we broke it down metaphorically. We watch as our father tells his son, “You know son, when a pizza loves a football…very much, they become official.” Then, with a little help from Super Bowl-winning Quarterback Matthew Stafford, who just happens to be in the room, Little Timmy gets a literal taste of the Sponsorship – all while a live studio audience gives us a celebratory “awwwwwww.”

Look, selling pizza is always the goal. And our work did that. We sold more pizza during the season and brought more new customers into the brand. (Just read the confidential section) But our NFL work also changed how people saw our brand. 73% of our target audience said they felt more positively about our brand. As one person put it “I think it helps Little Caesars, and Little Caesars makes the NFL more fun.” Touchdown.