Situation

The Shaq-a-roni is promoted during November and December covering key cultural moments, and holidays, like Giving Tuesday, Friendsgiving, Black Friday through Hanukkah and ultimately the lead up to Christmas. A lot of families gather round the table over pizza during this period and it's a strategically important period to achieve year end sales goals.

Brief

Make Shaq, and Papa Johns biggest pizza, the Shaq-a-roni, as culturally relevant during this period and cut through the clutter and din of traditional holiday period advertising and content.

Objectives

1. Achieve as much social media reach as possible (over 100MM impressions).

2. Out-perform the category in Q4 Comp Sales.

To combat the troubling phenomenon of Shrinkflation, we introduced the world to SHAQflation: the act of adding more extra cheese and pepperoni to an extra large pizza. The campaign helped Papa Johns launch the biggest pizza they make, the Shaq-a-roni, while featuring a larger than life family played by Shaquille O’Neal and his real life mother, Lucille. In the TV spots, the family discuss how Shrinkflation is impacting them and why Papa Johns’ SHAQflation is exactly what the world needs.

After airing a series of TV ads and social videos featuring a catchy original song created by Shaq, the news cycle and social platforms began taking notice. TikTokers created their own versions of the dance and news agencies like CNN featured SHAQflation on air. All the attention garnered millions of social impressions, including over 9.7MM views on a single TikTok video featuring Shaq and influencer Tony Stavoci.

Cultural & Consumer Insight

2022 was a hard year for consumers. A 40-year high inflation rate and Yelp reported seeing “shrinkflation” in their reviews for the first time ever. Consumers were losing faith in how brands were responding to the difficult economic times. The phenomenon continued to grow so much so that shrinkflation was one of Merriam Webster’s Words of the Year. As families headed into the holidays they wanted brands to respond with more, not less.

The Strategy

SHAQflation: while other brands are giving you less, Papa Johns is giving you more. More pizza, more cheese and more pepperoni. And little more for charity ($1 donation) too.

Community Engagement

In organic channels, Shaq did interstitials (ala The Big Short) describing the difference between Shrinkflation and SHAQflation to get the word out. Once it hit, he did collaborations with various TikTok influencers, turning the TVC song/track into a dance.

SHAQflation became a cultural hit reaching 136MM people across social and even appearing on a CNN segment regarding the economy. More importantly, Papa Johns comp sales outperformed the category and it helped the company achieve its highest sales volume year, ever.