Viral marketing
Concept Overview
The worlds largest pizza chain, “Pizza Hut” annouces the grand opening of the limited time only, “Pizza Cat! Store”.
The “employee” cats try the three challenges before pizza is delivered to your home, “ordering”, “cooking”, and “delivery”.
On the official site for “Pizza Cat! Store”, all 12 episodes recording the activity of the 4 cats were released. To commemorate the opening of the “Pizza Cat! Store”, the “Pizza Cat! Set” were sold in stores. Customers who purchased this set were entered into a raffle for a chance to win the “Pizza Cat! Caps”.
The story was created on the idea that since we are so busy making and delivering pizza for our customers to the point we want to borrow even our cats help, what happens if we really borrow there help?
The behind the scenes will be introduced in the form of a report made by our company’s project manager.
Concept Effect
The number of views exceeded 4 million views, just 2 weeks after release.
And was covered by various overseas news media such as TIME, ABC NEWS, ADWEEK, Buzz Feed, Washington Post to name a few, in over 30 countries worldwide.
Through using a new method called Viral Videos, we setup topics, branding and planning that would lead directly to purchases.
Challenging Points
To be enjoyed by all audiences, we made the content as simple as possible and made sure that users can enjoy the content without having to login to a specific site such as Facebook.
The easy to understand name, “Pizza Cat” was also a point of focus, since it was a key factor to get people to easily recognize it as a brand icon. We stuck to the theme, “what are contents loved all the time?”, and not something that is used only once and forgotten.
Through the concept and ideas coming together, we selected the videos that best fit into that for the promotion. Also, regarding the contents of the video, we made it extremely simple to the point where no explanations were necessary. And we believe that lead to the various overseas media coverage.
We believe this could be attributed to that fact that the content of the promotion was not complicated and was easy to understand, and users were able to feel attached to the cats through uploading drawing of the cats, and making summary sites out of their own will.
▼ Coverage on Overseas Media (Part of)
・US’s News Media said to be the Worlds’ First Magazine “TIME”
http://time.com/3176473/pizza-hut-japan-cats/
・One of US’s Top 3 TV Networks “ABC NEWS”
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/celebs-countdown-emmys-25117946
・News Media Following in Wall Street Journal’s Popularity “USA TODAY”
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/world/2014/08/25/14569419/
・US’s Leading Advertisement News Media “ADWEEK”
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/it-looks-pizza-hut-japan-now-totally-being-run-cats-159654
・US’s Leading Viral Media “Buzz Feed”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tasmaiuppin/pizza-cat-is-so-beautiful#2pk5wdc
・US’s Leading News Media “Washington Post”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2014/08/25/michael-sam-sacked-johnny-manziel-pizza-cat-is-a-real-thing-plus-more-in-our-daily-links/
・UK’s Leading News Media “DailyMail”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2733422/Earning-crust-A-Pizza-Hut-Japan-run-group-cats-hats.htm
▼All 12 episodes of these cute cats in action are listed below
・ Episode 1：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqDKlqy5hfQ
・ Episode 2：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z_nKWlKQlo
・ Episode 3：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj6Fbxf8weY
・ Episode 4：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO2LTndhLF0
・ Episode 5：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00BsOhz3WU
・ Episode 6：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VihEezzD6Wk
・ Episode 7：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5XcshenWeU
・ Episode 8：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grOlrwgMkiQ
・ Episode 9：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqTGZKJOkL8
・ Episode 10： https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbRInklLvF0
・ Episode 11：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FoFe0-FId4