Two campaigns for pizza (OK, one is for cheese via pizza) and one for gaming. Paul Nagy is either very much in tune with his inner child or very much in touch with the young end of the market. Either way, advertising wins. He has highlighted three brave campaigns that took giant leaps away from traditional advertising and showed off what creativity can do when it’s allowed to run wild and free. 

First up is Domino’s Paving for Pizza. Can you imagine proposing a campaign idea to a client with the words, “We want you to fill potholes in roads?” Brave agency. Brave client. Awesome idea. Big win. 

Paul Nagy

Domino’s Paving for Pizza.  [Crispin Porter + Bogusky]

Everyone’s trying to do meaningful work these days, right? But in a world where so many brands are trying to save the world, I find it really refreshing when a brand just tries to sell me a pizza… meaningfully. So when a brand famous for delivery went looking for meaning, what did it find to point its brand at? Potholes. Why? Because everyone hates them, and as Domino’s manifesto so brilliantly points out, “Nothing ruins a home-delivered pizza faster than a pothole.” So Domino’s started filling them in. All across America. And then turned them all into permanent little ads by spray painting its logo on them. The result is a brand making a tangible, ongoing, highly visible difference in the daily lives of their customers, and all in the name of pizza delivery. There really is nothing pizza can’t fix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MK2H4EgTQo

Spyro Reignited Trilogy.

From an immense undertaking to something brilliantly small, I loved the promo for the latest Spyro the Dragon Reignited game. The creative people behind this work identified that one of the game’s biggest fans was Snoop Dog – a fellow of considerable influence. But how to get his attention? What about building a Spyro the Dragon drone the size of coffee table (that can live stream to the internet and literally breathes fire) and then fly it across the country to deliver the game to him personally? Bingo. Ripple dissolve to awesome footage of Spyro chasing livestock, incinerating scarecrows, lighting random barbecues, crashing clumsily (and getting its head glued back on), getting pulled over by cops, racing swamp boats… and finally delivering the game to Snoop who rewards him with a gold chain for his trouble. Small. Fun. Clever. Watched by thousands. Became the highest selling game of the year. Also, it’s a drone that breaths fire. Genius.

Sargento Pizza’s World’s Slowest Delivery.  [Ogilvy Chicago]

Okay, I love pizza. You don’t get a rig like mine from eating kale, I promise you that. But what I like even more is a brand that zigs while everyone else is zagging. And during a moment in time when everything is fast, faster, fastest, Sargento Pizza went slow to highlight how long its delicious cheeses take to properly mature. So if you want an Aged Italian Pizza, you have to wait 4 months. If you want the Aged Cheddar Pizza… you have to wait a year and half (all the while monitoring your pizza’s glacial progress online). Sargento sold out all its pizzas in hours, gave itself the opportunity to create content for 18 months, and made sure everyone knew that its cheese is special because it’s old. Another brand doing something small and fun – to say something big.