‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ schemes were copping a lot of heat in the media due to the high fees for late payments trapping people into spirals of debt – with calls for the government to step in and regulate.

We used this timely opportunity to weigh in on the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ PR debate to build brand love for the HELL Pizza brand in New Zealand, and help launch in a new market just weeks after opening its first restaurant in Australia.

With a minimal budget, the campaign generated global organic PR coverage, appearing in 100+ headline news worldwide.

New Zealand fast food chain, HELL Pizza, is well-known for their dark and twisted, attention-grabbing marketing antics.

But they don’t have deep pockets to spend on their marketing, like their competitors (eg. Dominoes and Pizza Hut).

And they don’t always have an intriguing new pizza to promote.

Our ongoing (and very intimidating) challenge is to identify ways to provocatively inject HELL Pizza into popular conversation to drive awareness and consideration.

With a shoestring budget, our aim is to remind our target audience and franchisees of their love for the HELL brand.

HELL had also recently launched in Australia, so there was the added context of promoting HELL Pizza in this neighbouring market.

Key campaign objectives:

Increase our social following on TikTok, Instagram & Facebook

Media attention in New Zealand

Overseas media attention, specifically in Australia

Increase in customer activity

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Our idea was to take a stand against the contentious ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ schemes by launching our own scheme – HELL AfterLife Pay.

The difference being that with our service, our customers will never have to worry about their debt with us. Well, not in their lifetime.

Because with AfterLife Pay, you don’t have to pay back your pizza debt until you’re… dead!

This absurd and bone-chilling idea was aimed to capture the attention of our younger 18-30 year old audience, who would be drawn to the idea of receiving essentially a free pizza now, just by making a minor amendment to their Will.

Not that HELL would ever claim the debt. But legally, they could.

Our campaign directed people to a microsite where they could select their pizza, then share their signed Will on social media for the chance to be one of 666 to make it official.

‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ schemes have exploded in popularity, with high fees for late payments trapping people in spirals of debt. Something which was copping a lot of heat in the media, with calls for government regulation.

A recent investigation by Consumer New Zealand describes the schemes as ‘addictive’ and says being approved is easier than getting a credit card.

So when we heard that HELL Pizza’s CEO was recently approached by one of the growing number of ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ providers who wanted HELL to offer the service to their customers, we saw this as an opportunity.

An opportunity to use HELL’s tongue-in-cheek evil, for good.

To show that accumulating debt to buy something as simple as pizza is a step too far, and something that HELL is not afraid to stand against.

The key to this marketing PR stunt was ensuring that HELL AfterLife Pay was a 100% real and legally-binding promotional service.

This saw us working with legal professionals to aid us in the creation of a campaign microsite that, very simply, automatically generated personalised ‘Codicil to Wills’, including all the necessary legal requirements.

These could be instantly shared via all the usual social platforms for people to publicly brag about their intended purchase, and more importantly, help propel this campaign into the media, where the ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ industry was already getting a good grilling.

“Is this for real?” became the question on everyone’s mind, which was clarified by a supporting press release, campaign landing page, plus numerous news interviews and comms with HELL Pizza’s CEO and the newly appointed Head of HELL Australia.

With minimal budget, HELL AfterLife Pay captured attention all around the world.

OBJECTIVE: MEDIA ATTENTION IN NEW ZEALAND

We garnered news coverage from most of NZ’s major news publications, including:

Stuff (NZ’s most popular news outlet)

NewsHub (NZ’s leading news channel)

More FM, The Edge, The Rock, Mai FM, The Breeze (NZ’s top radio stations)

OBJECTIVE: OVERSEAS MEDIA ATTENTION, SPECIFICALLY IN AUSTRALIA

We surpassed expectations in our recently launched Australia market, including, but not limited to:

A 3-minute interview segment on Sunrise (Australia’s largest morning TV show)

7 News

The Project

But we also captured the interest of potential future overseas markets, with attention from the likes of:

Washington Post

India Times

Huff Post

Toronto Sun

Business Insider

Times of India

Culminating in 100+ news headlines from over 15 nations around the globe.

Totaling an estimated organic reach of well over 200 MILLION.

OBJECTIVE: INCREASE OUR SOCIAL FOLLOWING ON TIKTOK, INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK

We had a 95% increase in our TikTok social followers.

With our campaign video receiving over 1.3M views on TikTok alone.

17,976 wills were amended and shared on social channels.

OBJECTIVE: INCREASE IN CUSTOMER ACTIVITY

We had a 23% increase in new customer accounts - HUGE considering the popularity of HELL and length of time in business (27 years).

17% increase in HELL app/web activity

6% increase in revenue

But possibly the biggest result of all - HELL Pizza’s CEO of 20 years stated that this was his “favourite HELL campaign yet.”