Saputo produces, markets and distributes a wide array of products, including cheese, milk, yogurt, dairy ingredients and snack cakes. Its products are offered to consumers across the country, and Saputo is also a supplier in the foodservice industry (B2B). In this program, it wanted to focus on a specific and very important segment: pizzeria operators across Canada.
Most consumers have their favourite local pizza place, yet they have no idea what brand of cheese they are using – this is exactly the type of insight the agency wanted to leverage through this program.
The goal was to create a program to find “Canada’s Favourite Pizzeria.” Saputo wanted the title to be prestigious and recognized in the foodservice industry. Since the first edition of the program started in the fall of 2012, the winning pizzeria would also be the first to enter Saputo’s Pizza Hall of Fame.
The campaign’s main objective was to increase loyalty amongst Saputo’s (B2B) pizzeria customers.
Only pizzerias using Saputo as their cheese supplier were invited to sign up for this program. The beauty of this idea was that simply by entering the program, pizzeria operators enjoyed certain benefits. For example, they instantly became finalists in the competition to become “Saputo’s Favourite Canadian Pizzeria,” which made a great statement for their customers. Participating pizzerias also received a POS kit (poster, tent cards, etc.) to let their clients know they were in the running for Saputo’s favourite Canadian pizzeria, thus encouraging them to vote.
Saputo’s sales force was also mobilized to encourage pizzerias to sign up during the registration phase. They collected the participant’s information, which was entered on a microsite specifically developed for the registration period.
The winning restaurant had the chance to win free Saputo Pizza Mozzarella cheese for a year.
The contest was launched for the general public on Oct. 22. Consumers were invited to vote online and via a QR code on the POS material for their favourite pizzeria.
The pizzerias who had signed up for the program were featured on a consumer microsite with their exact locations on Google Maps, making it very easy for consumers to see which pizzerias were in the running in their neighbourhood.
Consumers were also invited to share the name of their favourite pizzeria via Facebook so they could encourage their friends to vote as well.
During the contest, the leading pizzerias were featured on the microsite and consumers were invited to go back and vote again and again for their favourite pizzeria. To encourage consumers to vote, they also had the chance to win a year of free pizza at the participating pizzeria they voted for.
In the end, the top-rated pizzeria won a year’s supply Saputo Pizza Mozzarella cheese (valued at $10k) and the three runners up won prizes of $1,000 of Saputo Pizza Mozzarella cheese. Three additional prizes of $500 worth of Saputo Pizza Mozzarella cheese were also given away during a random draw amongst all the participating pizzerias.
Saputo was hoping to sign up 200 pizzerias across Canada. When the registration phase was completed, 1,408 pizzerias, all customers of Saputo Foodservice, had signed up.
The voting portion for consumers was also very successful and 107,851 votes were tabulated at Pizzahalloffame.ca. A total of 25,071 visits to the contest website came from Facebook and 27,685 people visited the contest mobile site.
There is no doubt that this program has had a positive impact on Saputo – not only in terms of their B2B clients but also for brand awareness among Canadian consumers as well.