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Case Study
MOD Pizza x TRON: Ares
In the brand’s largest IP collaboration to date, MOD Pizza teamed up with Disney and Fandango to deliver a dinner and a movie campaign centered on the release of TRON: Ares. As the exclusive fast-casual dining brand partner, we brought the world of TRON to all of our activations, including in-restaurant print assets, CTV ads, 3rd-party paid media, film and entertainment influencers, live events, email, and owned channels. Customers who made a qualifying purchase at MOD Pizza received a $10 Movie Reward from Fandango to see the film in theaters. The promotion attracted a spike in new customers while delighting existing and loyal guests.
Three Distinct Challenges, One Big Achievement
Bringing this challenging campaign to life alongside industry giants like Disney and Fandango required our team to punch well above our weight class. To succeed, we had to navigate a complex matrix of technical guardrails, ambitious creative demands, and unexpected organizational hurdles. Often, creative is conflated with “artistic,” but in reality, it means thinking unconventionally to solve complex needs.
STAGE ONE
Scope & Budget
OBJECTIVE:
MOD Pizza partnered with Disney to deliver a licensed IP Campaign around the launch of TRON: Ares. We had 3 key goals:
- Increase customer traffic.
- Increase average order value (AOV).
- Increase brand awareness via top funnel marketing.
CONSIDERATIONS:
A typical MOD Pizza campaign takes $150k-$200k to go to market, with the vast majority of this cost from print production. Our contract added approx $650k in media and usage fees.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS:
- Identified campaign deliverables.
- Developed an estimated budget.
- Sourced applicable vendors.
- Forecasted media ROI.
Campaign at a Glance
STAGE TWO
Design Direction & Key Messaging
OBJECTIVE:
Our team set out to develop several ‘hero’ design directions and campaign messages that could be adapted for each campaign channel.
CONSIDERATIONS:
Disney provided x3 pieces of approved film art (posters) for us to design with. Our priority was exploring how we could elevate MOD Pizza’s brand and product while respecting the strict standards of Disney’s IP.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS:
- Art and creative direction.
- Copywriting.
- Auxiliary design.
WORLDS WILL COLLIDE
The film’s universe presents many opposing ideas. Organic vs synthetic. Real vs virtual. Control vs chaos. We took a less adversarial approach for our campaign headline, WORLDS WILL COLLIDE. Think dinner AND a movie. Sci-fi culture AND pizza culture. Big-brand Disney AND underdog MOD Pizza.
No Touching! And Other Rules.
One of the trickiest guardrails we had to follow was keeping a distinct separation between IPs. Per Disney, we could not overlap any MOD Pizza assets or headlines with the provided artwork. We felt many of the examples we were provided were overly simple and didn’t effectively capture the spirit of both IPs.
We took inspiration from key elements of the film to develop several “transition” elements that could be adapted to any of our designs. Over 30 concepts were explored, but we landed on 3.
These examples of our design direction display the three inspirations from the film: the bright, glowing red lights of the computerized world of TRON, the dark, curved design of the film’s iconic “light bike”, and the uniquely triangular accents of the titular character, ARES’s suit. Creating these elements with MOD Pizza’s brand colors further emphasized our campaign headlines, quite literally showing our two worlds colliding in the creative assets.
STAGE THREE
Print & Production Assets
OBJECTIVE:
Print production and product development are the longest lead times for going to market with a campaign. We would need to have all printed assets to our vendor 45 days before going live, including in-restaurant signage, employee t-shirts, and custom packaging.
CONSIDERATIONS:
Disney was contractually allowed a 10-day period for each review cycle. This gave our team approximately 15 calendar days to design all print assets.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS:
- Art and creative direction.
- Vendor management.
- Design.
- Packaging concept.
Flexible Design for All Restaurants
MOD Pizza has nearly 500 locations in 27 markets. Designing flexible assets is crucial when deploying campaigns across these restaurants that have inconsistent variables like floor layouts, unpredictable lighting conditions, and the condition of available fixtures. Adaptable designs ensured that we could offer consistently impactful assets despite these variables. Beyond just practical problem-solving, creating modular and versatile assets empowered the team on the ground, giving employees the agency to influence final placement and allowing them to optimize displays for their restaurants.
Above: Mockups of a few of the fixtures in-restaurant that could be swapped around based on layouts. Below: Mockup of window decals that could be cut to size by restaurants to fill the storefront glass despite variations in window size.
A Unique Challenge: Digital Packaging
Production timeline limitations in the campaign made for an innovative approach to our packaging. Lead times were simply too long to be able to supply TRON-branded pizza boxes or cups. So we drew inspiration from the grid and developed an AR experience that guests triggered via a QR code sticker on every box. Their pizza box then transformed into a light-grid city in a timed race to gather power-ups atop the franchise’s iconic light cycles. Guests could play anywhere, including at a Nine Inch Nails performance at the TRON: Ares premiere!
The experience could be screen-recorded, allowing for easy upload to social media channels. This ultimately turned a supply-chain obstacle into a campaign tent-pole.
This ambitious idea would not be ready to experience until the day before the campaign went live. This meant we had to go into print production for an asset that didn’t have any art. We were able to be non-literal in our design and instead focus on the emotional excitement of the experience. Later, we would update digital assets to showcase actual gameplay.
Employee Uniform
Employee tee-shirt designed to bring the world of TRON to MOD Pizza. It features an abstracted pizza slice made of “de-rezzing’ pixels on the front and a TRON: Ares identity disc and CTA on the back. Over 10,000 shirts were created ahead of the launch of the campaign and were provided for free to employees.
STAGE FOUR
Digital & Paid Media Assets
OBJECTIVE:
We created digital content across owned channels, 3rd party ordering, and paid media to promote the campaign at strategic moments.
CONSIDERATIONS:
The full marketing funnel was considered for all media placements, with the bulk of ad spend targeting “awareness” metrics leading up to the premiere. After the film launched, we pivoted to “consideration” and “conversion” targets.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS:
- Art and creative direction.
- Video development.
- Email layout and design.
- Media buying.
Connected TV (CTV)
We developed a :30 and :15 video ad that streamed on CTV channels for the duration of the campaign. The ad buy was split into 2 phases.
PHASE ONE
- Aired in the 2 weeks leading up to the film premiere.
- About $250k in spend (75% of CTV spend).
- AWARENESS funnel:
- Target Demographics: Film lovers, pizza lovers, families.
- Target DMAs: 27 markets, about 1400 zip codes.
PHASE TWO
- Aired in the 2 weeks after the film premiere.
- About $50k in spend (25% of CTV spend).
- CONSIDERATION funnel:
- Target Demographics: Broad appeal.
- Target DMAs: 27 markets, about 800 zip codes.
Directed by: Ryan Hills
Results at a Glance
Spend and Impressions
Takeaway: The high saturation of spend in the PRE DEBUT period shows huge growth in impressions, indicating expected performance from an “awareness” campaign. POST DEBUT, the spend transitions into a more likely to “convert” audience; a smaller audience, but more ROAS. The campaign was ended on 10/28 so no impressions or spend occurred, but attributed sales continued to flow in for 2 weeks.
Pageviews and Purchases
Takeaway: To track purchases, a 14-day window is used. If a user is shown the ad and within 14 days completes an action, they trigger an attribution. This chart was the same shape we had seen in previous campaigns. Because of the attribution window, things start very small. Fridays and Saturdays were the highest action days. Mondays were the lowest action days.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Takeaway: The 75% split of spend likely oversaturated our markets in the first 2 weeks, where we hit a wall on return. We likely would have seen a better initial performance with a linear spend, but that was not allowed in our contract. Altogether, this data shows almost exactly what we predicted for performance with the first phase acting as an AWARENESS campaign and the second phase acting as a CONSIDERATION/CONVERSION campaign.
PAID MEDIA
We implemented ad buys for paid social media on META platforms, as well as display ads with 3rd party partners like Uber Eats.
Spend and Impressions
Takeaway: Paid social gives far cleaner data on CONVERSION campaigns as they are interactive. People can link straight from the ad to our order page, reducing obstacles.
STAGE FIVE
Post Premiere & Earned Media
OBJECTIVE:
Our partnership with Disney brought us to the red carpet for the TRON: Ares premiere.
CONSIDERATIONS:
With a significant presence at the world premiere, MOD Pizza gained additional awareness and consideration from high-profile “earned media”.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS:
- Content direction.
- Social media capture.
- Event support.
MOD Pizza on the Red Carpet
MOD Pizza was featured on the red carpet premiere’s step and repeat backdrops, creating a huge earned media boost with entertainment news that featured photos of the cast, filmmakers, and more. It was our brand’s largest off-premise activation as we also provided pizza and salad for nearly 2,000 audience attendees.
Instagram posts from the cast and influencers contributed to a surge in earned media. We looked at 13 accounts, including Jared Leto and Gillian Anderson, as well as cosplay icons and ‘film-culture’ journalists.
Organic Social Media and Influencers
As part of our ongoing content ecosystem, we had social media posts scheduled for strategic moments that targeted different demographics and amplified specific campaign elements. We identified 4 macro-influencers who had a long history in film and entertainment to bring our campaign to life through their own channels.
Gabi Whiting – 482k Followers
Gabi brings film society to TikTok and Instagram with a larger-than-life personality on the red carpet and convention lines. She was our guest at the premiere of the film to hype MOD Pizza as the new players in town.
Jen Markham – 90k Followers
A big name in the cosplay world and self-described lover of pizza, Jen was enlisted to showcase the full customer journey from ordering MOD, to submitting a receipt to Fandango, and heading off to the theatre.
Cameron Kozak – 1.78m Followers
Cameron has amassed a large following with the intersection of tech and entertainment. He was a great choice to showcase our AR experience.
Raiders of the Lost Podcast – 482k Followers
A film discussion video podcast, this duo ran 4 mid-program sponsored segments tying MOD Pizza to the release of TRON: Ares.
STAGE SIX
Takeaways & Learnings
OBJECTIVE:
Debrief on internal and external perceptions.
CONSIDERATIONS:
Although data helps paint an objective picture of performance, there is often more nuance to the larger impact.
Successes
As part of our ongoing content ecosystem, we had social media posts scheduled for strategic moments that targeted different demographics and amplified specific campaign elements. We identified 4 macro-influencers who had a long history in film and entertainment to bring our campaign to life through their own channels.
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