Pizza Hut pioneers pizza innovation, infusing fun into every slice. Beyond products, it aims to make the brand experience a fun one- introducing innovations like the Pac-Man pizza box and projector boxes for game/movie nights. As they launched their newest innovation–Hot Honey–they needed to capture attention and drive engagement. Goodbye Pies did both on a massive scale. By earning over 7 billion impressions, shattering the website visit benchmark by more than 700% at 746,000 views in a week, and delivering over 500 relationship-ending pizzas, this campaign earned brand love and engagement like Pizza Hut’s never seen before.

On Culture

Valentine’s Day has a Gen Z problem. Donned as the “loneliest generation” and the generation that has its fair share of commitment issues, the most romantic day of the year is losing relevancy for the younger generation. In fact, this generation is so anti-Valentine’s day that “Red Tuesday”, the day before Valentine’s Day, is known to have the most breakups in the year.

On brand

Pizza Hut was the leading fast food pizza brand in the U.S. It was the brand where kids growing up in the 90s would celebrate birthdays and milestones. But the market and youth culture has changed a lot since the pizza parties of yesteryear. Brands like Dominos and Papa Johns have aggressively taken up share as Pizza Hut struggles to remain relevant to Gen Z.

So when the brand came to us to promote their Hot Honey Pizza during Valentine’s Day, we needed to tap into Gen Z insights to bring the brand back to relevancy. Naturally, we tapped into Gen Z’s unconventional tendency to break up before the holiday. Through the"Goodbye Pies" activation, Pizza Hut provided a lighthearted approach to parting ways, catering to couples and situationships that weren't working out. This unconventional strategy not only set Pizza Hut apart from competitors but also sparked widespread conversations and relevance across the nation.

Pizza Hut unveiled their new Hot Honey Pizza, marrying the sweetness of honey with a fiery punch. Released just in time for Valentine’s Day, this bold fusion speaks volumes about the complexities of romances today. And so, as the brand that wants to become the “Pizza of Pop Culture,” we wanted their Hot Honey Pizza launch to make its way to Gen Z’s group chats and TikToks on V-Day. To make sending a Goodbye Pie the new “un-romantic” gesture for Valentine’s Day.

Recognizing the importance of balance in relationships, we understand that the perfect dynamic blends passion and romance. The Hot Honey pizza embodies this balance, harmonizing sweet and heat for a heavenly combination. As the creators of Hot Honey pizza, Pizza Hut aims to maintain this equilibrium, serving as the go-to brand for both good and bad news, ensuring every experience-even if its a breakup- is balanced and satisfying.

We think of Valentine’s Day as a holiday bursting with love. But the Tuesday beforehand— dubbed Red Tuesday— is actually the year’s biggest day for breakups. And our young audience knew better than anyone that breakups in the modern dating scene are not fun for either party. So to launch Pizza Hut’s new Hot Honey pizza, we created a way for people to deliver the spicy news in a sweeter way.

Goodbye Pies: The Hot Honey pizza that breaks up with them for you. Using our site, dumpers ordered a free Goodbye Pie to the dumpee’s address, leaving our drivers to deliver the spicy news. In addition to delivering breakups in person, we also delivered them over text. We wrote and sent that dreaded breakup text for you, along with a gift card for a Hot Honey Goodbye Pie. You dodged the awkward conversation. They got a delicious pizza. Win-win.

This activation primarily targeted Gen Z (12 – 27), particularly those who are in a relationship they want to get out of. Unfortunately, Gen Z struggles to call it quits on relationships that aren’t working. Instead they opt for the classic “slow fade” or “ghosting” to end things without saying anything at all.

Luckily, with the new Hot Honey “Goodbye Pies,” Pizza Hut can break up with their partners for them. From Red Tuesday through Valentine’s Day, customers could begin the breakup process by going on GoodbyePies.com and create a personalized breakup message on custom packaging along with a FREE Hot Honey pizza to soften the blow.

This offer was limited to NYC, Chicago, and Miami-cities with the highest number of breakups. But customers in other locations can go to the microsite to have Pizza Hut draft breakup texts.

We launched with various social media posts across Instagram, TikTok, and X where we directed people to our website, GoodbyePies.com, where they could order a free GoodbyePie to their ex’s address. The Hot Honey pizza came in a special limited-edition Goodbye Pie box, complete with the dumper’s name on it, and our delivery drivers delivered the spicy news in a sweeter way. They were available from February 6th through the end of February 14th, and in total, we ended up giving out 556 Goodbye Pies.

The campaign garnered over 7 billion media impressions, over 1 million organic social impressions, $713,300 incremental SMV. It was featured in 1,652 media placements, 89% of which were feature stories and 60% of which included campaign assets, netting out to 100% positive to neutral sentiment.

It earned over 600 broadcast segments including, CNN, Fox News, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

It had stories in top-tier publications such as People, Forbes, Fast Company, Daily Mail, The New York Post, Fortune, USA Today, Mashed, MSN, Today, CBS News, Yahoo News, Fox Business, Psychology Today and over 1,000 more.

The Goodbye Pies website was visited 746,000, shattering the benchmark of previous successful campaigns by more than 700%. It was viewed on social nearly half a million times.

In total, 556 Goodbye Pies were given out, ending 556 relationships in a sweeter way.