BACKGROUND
Historically, large sporting events—particularly international ones in which England is performing well—result in a surge in takeaway pizza sales. Sports fans gather with friends to watch the match, and a piping hot, pre-sliced pizza is the ideal sharing food. With the Euros taking place this summer and England poised for a strong tournament run, Papa John’s challenge was to cut through the noise of big-budget competitors (Domino's) and position themselves as the perfect teammate for match day. We set ourselves a target of 4,500 sales throughout the tournament period.
THE BIG IDEA
Our idea was to employ reactive ads—mentioning real-world moments from the tournament—to create thumb-stopping content, generate strong engagement, and ultimately drive sales. In addition to managing their performance strategy and delivery, Bicycle Blade was also responsible for Papa John’s creative approach via Bicycle Studio. Working under a single roof, we were able to integrate our media strategy with our creative approach, allowing us to be agile and pivot our messaging as the tournament progressed.
MAKING IT HAPPEN
For the Group Stage games, we activated same-day creative for all England and Scotland matches, increasing spend and serving match-specific assets that encouraged sports fans to take advantage of the Papa John’s Summer Sharer deal. These assets highlighted the participating teams with tongue-in-cheek football-related messaging. We replicated this for each England knockout match, creating additional creatives for each stage of the tournament. With Scotland out of the tournament, we adapted our approach to cater to other high-profile matches (such as the France vs. Spain Semi-Final).
The challenge, particularly in the knockout stages, was the uncertainty of which teams would participate until the previous stage had concluded. This resulted in very short turnaround times for designing the creative, receiving client approval, and building the ads in-platform. With an integrated media and creative team under one roof, we were able to drive a robust SLA process, ensuring high-quality work was delivered and approved promptly.
With these processes in place to align creative and media, we were able to extend beyond performance into well-timed brand-building executions. This included OOH placements in Scotland referencing Scotland’s pseudo-national anthem “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie,” as well as a print ad nodding to Gareth Southgate’s steadfast approach to team selection.
RESULTS
Tapping into both the ‘macro’ moment of the Euros and the ‘micro’ storylines within the tournament yielded stellar results. We generated 23,200 sales at a CPA 81% lower than the benchmark. ROAS came in at a very high 9.10. Aligning with the macro moment of the Euros also led to sustained brand demand; the opening day of the Euros saw the strongest share of search compared to Domino's and Pizza Hut over the past 90 days, with persistent high search volume throughout the tournament.
Looking ahead to the second half of summer and upcoming macro- and micro-moments, we will continue to activate media and creative in tandem. This approach provides the flexibility to tap into real-world relevance to drive sales and exceed targets. While Gareth Southgate may value a consistent squad selection on the pitch, we have demonstrated a more dynamic approach to achieving media effectiveness.
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