Dentsu Creative Malaysia teamed up with Carat Media to change the playing field and play the game with a new audience.

In the buildup to the event, data showed a spike in downloads of mobile football games including FIFA Mobile, Football Manager, and Top Eleven – with 1.2 million active users (and climbing).

Enter gamers, a passionate and untapped audience who loved to recreate scorelines of live matches in the virtual world. The strategy was to tap into this unique gamer behaviour and offer a real-time, in-game hack to order special Cheesy Poppers Pizza combos.

“The World Cup is a prime period for any brand, and we understand the costs of battling competitors for a greater share of voice. Instead, we sought a strategic creative solution that showcased Dentsu Creative’s unified strength,” said Kunal Roy, CEO of Dentsu Creative Malaysia.

Recognizing gamers’ aversion to traditional advertising, our idea seamlessly connected across relevant channels like Twitter to generate more buzz.”

Every time a goal was scored on live TV, a unique Cheese Code dropped on dynamic A-boards in mobile football games. Gamers could simply tap on the board to order limited-edition pizza combos in real life. The codes were created by combining player names with pizza toppings: MBAPPEPPERONI, CRISPIANO, MEZZIRELLA, NEYMARINARA, MODRICHILI, and many more.

“Our commitment to Modern Creativity compelled us to play a different game compared to our competitors,” said Andrew Low, Group CCO at Dentsu Creative Malaysia.

“Football thrives in the real-time world. Our fan engagement campaign aimed to infiltrate real-time conversations for real-life conversions. This move paid off with boosted sales and enhanced brand sentiment—a win-win-win for us, the brand, and the consumers.”

As the World Cup progressed, the team concurrently tracked live games, selecting codes that would be relevant to the player that scores a goal. “This allowed us to stay current and break through the media chaos with increased attention and engagement,” shared Sid Nair, Creative Director at Dentsu Creative Malaysia.

Results:

• The campaign gained a significant share of voice, with Cheesy Poppers witnessing a 14% surge in sales in just twenty-five days.
• The campaign registered 8.4 million media impressions with a reach of 1.1 million unique viewers and engaged over a million gamers.

“The success of this campaign exceeded our personal and marketing expectations,” said Emily Chong, CMO of Pizza Hut Malaysia.

“The gamified approach and business results speak for themselves. We look forward to engaging new customers in their own gaming worlds in 2023 and beyond.”