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.

Mike's Hard Lemonade

Bad news Mike, your product has been trying to jump the same hurdle for years. May I suggest a different race? Mike’s Hard Lemonade ads are all using humor differently, but are really trying to achieve the same end for the product. In an effort to broaden their existing audience of underage girls, they clearly want to make a charge at the beer drinker. Their latest campaign depicts a dimwitted worker and his harsh superior talking about different ways to improve the company. Very reminiscent of the movie Tommy Boy featuring Chris Farley and not a bad idea, but it just seems that there is a barrier between hard lemonade and the traditional drinking crowd. That barrier being that the mere purchase of this product results in lose of man points to the consumer. I’m going to play horseshoes (I live below the Mason-Dixon line) this weekend and this is probably how the conversation would go if I brought a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade:

Me: Yo, what’s up? Lets pitch some steel!

Dude #1: Hey glad you could make it. Just go put your drinks inside and we’ll get it started. By the way did you catch The Young and the Restless this week?

Me: Uhhh, what?

Dude #2: You heard the man, go put your appletinis in the kitchen and come back when you are ready to work on a car or wrestle a bear.

Attacks on my manhood would probably continue until I drank an entire fifth of gut rot whiskey and I would still be prone to insults after I got my stomach pumped. My point is that Mike has been knocking on the same door for years in an attempt to position hard lemonades and teas as a manly alternative (malternative) to beer. I’m not a big fan of beer myself, but since I’ve been of legal age, I’ve never seen a man purchase Mike’s for himself. When I go into the grocery store to buy beer I have a plethora of options and if I’m not in the mood for the taste of beer Mike’s still has to compete with hard ciders, fruit-flavored beer and wine (that’s right ladies I’m a man of class).

I would love to suggest that they market their product to the girls in high school, but my research shows that is illegal. So until we kick out those lousy democrats in Congress it would be nice to see Mike’s switch up their message. I understand that the male drinkers from ages 21-death is a very lucrative market, but maybe creating a new audience would be a better fit for this unique product. Women seem to make the jump from beer to wine rather quickly, but there are situations where a hard lemonade or tea may be more practical than dealing with a big bottle/box of wine. Note: If you are the type of woman that would drink from a full bottle of wine at a baseball game, cookout or any other daytime social activity, my contact information can be found on the right side of this page. If Mike’s is hesitant to market to women drinkers full-on in fear of forever positioning their beverages as sissy drinks then maybe going after men and women who drink socially would be a better avenue. They could attack the stigma of “girly drinks” head on, which could result in some really funny creative executions while changing the perception of these beverages.

Or just keep pushing the “hard” angle…how about instead of money; pay MMA fighters in Mike’s Hard Lemonade.