While many NCAA corporate sponsors activate around the Final Four, Pizza Hut wanted its return to collegiate athletics evident across all sports.
“Pizza connects with a lot of different sports. It’s not specific to just football and basketball,” said Doug Terfehr, senior director of marketing and corporate communications/partnerships for Pizza Hut, which has come back to the NCAA sponsor fold after leaving in the mid-1990s. “You see your scale at different events and realize the opportunity that’s there regardless of the national attention that sport receives.”
That belief inspired the company to run a video competition to find its “All-American” last fall, a promotional representative to attend all 33 Division I championships during the 2016-17 school year.
In November, Pizza Hut selected former Big Ten Network host Jason Fisher to become “the luckiest fan in sports,” receiving a $50,000 salary.
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Jason Fisher connected with fans at all 33 NCAA Division I championship events.
COURTESY OF: PIZZA HUT |
Along the journey, Fisher ran the social media accounts for the brand, PHAllAmerican, garnering a combined 25,000 followers between Twitter and Instagram. Posts included everything from Fisher pitching off the mound at the College World Series to eating pizza with Cleveland Cavaliers forward Richard Jefferson and other athletes.
The most successful content centered around PieTops — a limited-edition basketball shoe with pizza-ordering capabilities — and created a “frenzy” as followers attempted to get a pair of their own, according to Fisher. Social media posts and a commercial featuring Grant Hill created the most coveted Pizza Hut sports-themed promotional item since the NCAA-branded mini-basketballs the company sold in the late 1980s for $2.99 with a pizza purchase over $10.
Even without PieTops to create buzz, however, Fisher’s humor both online and during halftime promotions was more than enough to satisfy the company.
“Had we not landed with the type of personality that we did, I still think we would have achieved some of the success that we set out to do,” Terfehr said. “The reason why we went above and beyond our expectations had a lot to do with the personality that we found.”
Fisher said he traveled more than 75,000 miles to 25 destinations across the country to see everything from Clemson’s football title in Tampa to a beach volleyball championship in Gulf Shores, Ala., a favorite for the California native.
“I was really the Pizza Hut ambassador everywhere I went,” Fisher said. “I’m a die-hard sports fan, and I’ve spent my career as a content creator telling stories, so this was a dream job for me. I was crazy enough to want to do this, but I also wasn’t afraid of it. I thrive off of the energy and the insane travel schedule.”
Pizza Hut cited increased sales around weekends of college championships and increased social media interaction as evidence of a successful promotion.
While plans for year two of the company’s partnership with the NCAA haven’t yet been announced, it’s likely that Pizza Hut will activate at more than just the most followed college championships once again.
“We were able to make a deep connection to [sports] that often doesn’t get that level of attention from sponsors,” Terfehr said. “From an outcome perspective, the amount of recognition we received from those sports fans far exceeded our expectations.”
