Comics and Pizza...together at last.

Outside of mathematics, pizza may be the universal language. To love pizza is to love life. Those who claim to not like a slice of pie mostly don’t enjoy sunshine or puppies either. This universal affection makes the product easy to market, but rarely do we see unique engaging campaigns coming from Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, or Domino’s.

Restaurant and movie promotions go together like Harley Quinn and the Joker. I’m sure if I look around my room at my parent’s house long enough I can find my old limited edition Demolition Man Taco Bell cup (never figured out what the three shells were for). Domino’s obviously wants to piggyback on the hype of the next installment in the Batman series and they are actually doing it very well.

Let’s go behind the scenes and see what Domino’s is doing to engage with consumers through co-promotion.


What's in the box? Or actually, what's on the box?
The corner stone of the campaign is the Gotham City Pizza. Nothing too special, it's essentially a large Brooklyn pizza "cloaked" in pepperoni. You may need a superhero when this pizza "cloaks" your arteries. Brand extension takes form in the pizza box. Black and gray cardboard with Batman suit cut-outs. Thus far the only Batsuit pieces to come out are the wrist guards and the chest plate. Customers are really digging the boxes, but I haven't seen too many cardboard superheros taking to the streets yet.


Thar she blows!
The Gotham City Pizza, in all it's glory. The idea is simple, but it works. Especially since people are so psyched about the movie, they are willing to explore almost anything Dark Knight related.


The trick is getting the pizza in the box though.

Domino's and Batman are gunning for nerds hard with this campaign. Comic books, pizza and now add video games.
What would a restaurant/movie tie-in be without a contest. Some lucky geek (not me) will get a nifty Xbox 360 that he can either ad to his collection or put on ebay for some serious money.

The Dark Knight campaign for Domino's is fairly simple, but hits on all cylinders. It's fun, it engages with the consumer and it hypes the movie. Now all we need is free tickets for employees and everything would be perfect.