Objective / brief from client In late April 2010, PizzaExpress briefed Unity to deliver brand buzz with a campaign that would promote its product, through the filter of its core value‘feeding great conversations’.

Although we knew we’d be going up against hundreds of brands attempting to capitalise upon the election,we felt it was too good an opportunity to miss, so sought to devise and launch a campaign in a two-week period –no pressure!

Please note, the election fell just outside the time band for these awards, however coverage appeared over a five-week period from 29th April to 3rd June. Furthermore, the ‘impact on sales’ figures weren’t available until June.

PizzaExpress is proud to be a democratic brand – i.e. one that appeals to every segment of society – as such the target audience here was simply a broad consumer audience.

StrategyIn the run-up to the election, PizzaExpress’ 6.2 million patrons would undoubtedly be tucking into hearty political debate as they ate, so using politics as a hook felt right. We believed we could use these conversations to reflect the views of the nation - both back to the public, and also direct to politicians themselves.

As any fan of the West Wing will know, election campaigns are fuelled by late nights and pizza – particularly the final few weeks. We felt that PizzaExpress could therefore neatly claim to be fuelling the election by feeding the politicos - both physically and metaphorically - through the delivery of a bespoke pizza that neatly communicated the views, concerns and opinions of the people that mattered: the electorate.

Method DeployedWith an aim of using the medium as the message, we worked closely with head chef Antonio Romani to convert the political table talk - sourced througha poll - into the ‘People’s Pizza’, a portrait ofpolitical Britain.

Modelled on a traditional four-seasons pizza, but with eight segments, each issue – such as the row over taxbreaks for married couples – was matched with a host of familiar and unusual toppings, in proportion to how much they were being debated over dinner. This included caviar to represent debate about class, ‘dough’ balls for the national deficit, and bacon to signify financial rows over rises in National Insurance Contributions and VAT.

Political pundit, Professor John Curtice, was then brought on board to support the findings and comment on how political debates with friends and family genuinely influences voter behaviour. And to ensure our‘People’s Pizza’ worked hard for us, PizzaExpress busted a gut to get it on the menu in relevant PizzaExpress restaurants across the country – namely those in swing seats where debate was at its fiercest.

Working closely with PizzaExpress’ in-house PR and marketing team the campaign delivered across a number of channels through the following strands of activity.

Teaser campaign – in the week leading up to the election, a series of night-time drops took place to party HQs around London. Paired with a creative infographic explaining the topical toppings, it provided a readily digestible mandate to the leaders of the three main political parties. A viral film was created of the undercover deliveries, and key spokespeople were engaged through social media – the likes of John Prescott and of Tory spin doctor Henry Macrory couldn’t help but comment on Twitter. These political tweets were subsequently fed back to the media and made the diary pages.

Media news story – the findings of our poll – illustrated through our pizza – were sent to key media, political columnists and bloggers. This not-so-subtle bribe worked as it not only got their attention, but also created discussion amongst journalists leading to follow-on features.

Regional round tables – local politicians in key swing seats were also delivered regionalised versions of our edible manifestos and invited alongside their rivals to join each other for a pizza fuelled debate in a PizzaExpress restaurant. Local media were invited down to cover the events and to review the new dish.

Name of category entered: 10. Marketing Communications (less then £100k)Title of work: ‘People’s Pizza’, a portrait of political BritainAgency name: Unity, Company name: PizzaExpress,

‘People’s Pizza’, a portrait of political Britain

Political portraits of the leaders - acclaimed food artist Prudence Staite was engaged to create three political pizza portraits of the leaders – providing each with a taste of what voters really thought of them.The toppings were again informed by public opinion, so, extra cheese for David Cameron, Chilli for Gordon Brown’s fiery temper and spicy sausage for passionate Nick Clegg.

The pizzas were: placed exclusively with The Sun’s election round-up page; hand delivered to the live debates (generating many tweets); and were even featured on the Politics Show. And when Gordon Brown came under fire by disenchanted voter, Gillian Duffy,we doctored his pizza face with an extra ingredient -egg (on his face) - sorry Gordon! - and pushed it out across social media channels, to the public’s amusement.

Election all nighter – to satisfy voters’ political appetite, PizzaExpress Millbank served-up its own slice of election fever, broadcasting live coverage of the Election deep into the night from the heart of London’s political epicentre, whilst serving up our People’s Pizza.This provided yet another media hook and further coverage including a BBC vox pop piece focused on the public’s view of our pizzas.

OutcomeOver the election period (six weeks from the week before the election), we secured:

10 national hits (inc The Sun x 2, BBC x 2, The Times, The Telegraph, The Mirror, The Evening Standard, The Independent, News of the World) from a total of…

41 targeted pieces

1 feature on the Politics Show

753,453,680 opportunities to see

In excess of 150 re-tweets and discussions generated – including OK! Magazine and The TelegraphSignificant was the quality of the tweets, from key influencers including Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale, John Prescott and even David Miliband – “@JohnPrescott @PizzaExpress like Gordon and Labour, do you deliver ;)”

Social reach of 178,000

Although sales generation was not a key objective,the restaurants non-the-less saw a significant uplift:12.73% and 14.93% sales increases respectively at the Birmingham and Manchester branches (key swing seats where political pizza events took place)4.24% - the overall increase in sales across all PizzaExpress restaurants during election week,a significant amount when translated into sales.

Relation to objectives and cost-effectivenessOur activity clearly created buzz, and neatly brought the strap line - feeding great conversations - to life, by focusing on the table talk surrounding the election. Furthermore, the impact the activity had on sales,paid for it a hundred times over.

Creativity/OriginalityAt a time of fierce competition, the creativity of our campaign ensured that our story ‘made’ where so many others failed. We successfully capitalised on the election, creating social currency for Pizza Express inthe process.

People: Nik Done, Gerry Hopkinson, Ella Dorley-Brown, Phil Drew, Natalie Wheeler.

Outside contractors: None used