News

Uncle Maddio's promotion checks all the right boxes

February 9, 2017

Everybody has a little artist or inventor inside, and Uncle Maddio's latest promotion taps directly into that creative spirit. The chain's national "Create-Your-Own" Pizza contest is off and running on this Pizza Day, challenging all those closet Julia Childs out there to not only invent their own pies but also share it with the world via social media with the hastag, #MyMaddios. 

Aside from the awe and admiration of friends and family, the winner of this culinary challenge will get a free trip for four to Universal Orlando, complete with airfare, hotel and just general rock-star status in the pizza world. The Coca-Cola-sponsored competition runs now through Feb. 28 and is clearly intended to draw not only customer engagement with the brand, by literally inviting the public to learn the chain's menu, but also drive some serious social media traffic. The rules alone reveal the business intent behind the marketing initiative, which invites players to:  

1. Create their own pizzas, as long as they use one of the chain's three crust varieties, seven sauces and 41 toppings, which the brand boasts in a news release can ultimately produce up to 132,651 combinations. The approach is innovative as it prompt both those familiar and unfamiliar with the brand to take a deep dive into the menu and actually "cook" with it by proxy and then order the pie to complete the rest of the steps of the contest. 
2. Snap a photo of the finished pizza, making sure to clearly display all the ingredients used. This step produces some great content for the brand's social media venues, while simultaneously promoting orders and getting customers to actually "advertise" for the chain. 
3. Post the pizza photos to social media with a pre-designated hashtag, #MyMaddios. Here the chain has basically guaranteed accurate measurement of the promotion's effectiveness, while simultaneously driving traffic on three social media channels of Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Uncle Maddio's stipulates that the pizza creation with the most likes, comments and shares wins the prize, while the next two most attention-getting pizza concoctions win their creators a free 9-inch, 3-topping pizza once a week for 52 weeks. The chain has built in a way to extend the life of the promotion by saying that Uncle Maddio's staffers will also choose three favorite customer-created concoctions from those posted, which will then be featured next quarter as LTOs at the chain across the U.S. 

Uncle Maddio’s is supporting the contest with paid media advertising, digital outreach and in-store table tents, window clings and flyers.