There have been Christmas ads that made you cry. One that made you feel good. One that made you do good. Now here’s one that’s fabulously silly. Boston Pizza has launched a holiday gift guide that is what pizza lovers dream of, a collection of more than 20 curated pizza-themed gift items created by agency, john st.
The BP SnowScooter has pizza slices for skis. The SL-ice Scraper is a slice-shaped windshield scraper. The Parma Snow Globe is a snow globe filled with parmesan cheese. While BP says it might require a holiday miracle to find these items under your tree, it also thinks they’re definitely worth wishing for. And this year, we could all do with more wishing in our lives. Real life is being a bit nasty.
That’s why BP is featuring all its gifts in a digital gift guide housed at BPWishList.com. This is carefully designed to resemble the holiday wish books from the 1980s and ‘90s, which youngsters would study in the weeks before the holidays to assemble their holiday wish list.
“We all remember that feeling of opening up a holiday catalogue, scanning through every page, reading every single word,” stated James Kawalecki, VP marketing at Boston Pizza. “There’s a deep emotional connection to that routine that’s been lost in the digital age. We wanted to tap into those nostalgic feelings and put our messaging right into that headspace, but in a Boston Pizza way.”
Some of the 20+ gifts directly reference those gifts of yesteryear, but there are also nods to contemporary gift guides, such as the Robot Vacuum Pizza Decal or Pep on a Step, the BP equivalent of Elf on a Shelf.
Billboards and paid social ads are highlighting specific gift items in order to drive traffic to the full online guide. BP is also bringing back a retro ad format in the shape of a printed catalogue that is being sent out through direct mail.
“Pizza is something we’re all eating over the course of the holidays, but it’s just not automatically associated with this time of the year,” stated Cam Boyd, creative director at john st. “With this idea, we’re hoping to change that, and make Boston Pizza as synonymous with the holidays as, say, the carol that goes ‘Fa ‘za ‘za ‘za ‘za’ ‘za za za za.”
The Holiday Wish List follows other creative innovations from Boston Pizza and john st., including Mini Patio Sets, A Christmas Pizza in a Caroling Box, Pizza in Bed, The BP Patio Re-Training Manual and Weighted Napkins. And who knows, maybe with a Christmas miracle, some of the Wish List gifts may be available for purchase in the not-so-distant future.
Credits:
Client: Client: Boston Pizza Canada
SVP, Marketing: Peter Blackwell
VP, Marketing: James Kawalecki
Director of Marketing: Niels van Oyen
Marketing Manager: Sarah Baird
Associate Marketing Managers: Gabrielle Herbert & Carlyn Mandarano
Creative Agency: john st.
Chief Creative Officer: Cher Campbell
Creative Director: Cam Boyd
Associate Creative Directors: Dan Cantelon &Marc Levesque
Art Director: Brian Zheng
Copywriter: Emma Lorenzi
Strategy Director: Mike Strasser
Executive Producer: Matthew DeWaal
Producer: Danielle Lloyd
Group Business Lead: Ian Brooks
Business Lead: Lindsay Day
Account Supervisor: Kelly Brennan
Account Coordinator: Bairavi Sripalan
Production:
CGI: Brad Pickard
Retouching: Nabil Elsaadi
Wireframes: One Pixel Off
Printer: Gas Company
