In the world of QSR with roughly 1,548 item releases a year, becoming the biggest new product isn’t just difficult, it’s nearly impossible. That’s why, when we launched Little Caesars’ Crazy Puffs, we knew we had to do something out-of-the-ordinary.
Little Caesars’ Crazy Puffs are mini handheld pizzas, perfect for eating on the fly. About 60% of people report that they regularly eat on the go, often in their cars. Coupling that with the TikTok trend of in-car food reviews, we had our "AHA" idea. We knew we could create a cultural moment around Crazy Puffs on the go. We just had to create the right kind of buzz and play on the American cultural social-media-driven phenomenon, the Fear of Missing Out, a.k.a. FOMO, to make the Crazy Puffs launch crazy successful.
We specifically identified food influencers with high engagement rates rather than selecting based on follower count, and sent them an invite to an exclusive in-person event for the launch of Crazy Puffs: People United for Foodreviews Yeah!, aka “P.U.F.F.Y. Fest.” We asked influencers to unbox their invitations on their platforms and share their journey to P.U.F.F.Y. Fest on TikTok to create momentum. At the event, they created on-the-go style content and reviews before Crazy Puffs were even available in stores, creating FOMO for those not invited.
Although small and exclusive, P.U.F.F.Y. Fest was a huge success. Top-tier TikTok influencers and celebrities questioned why they weren’t invited, inspiring them to make their own organic UGC. We also had everyday people waiting to try and review Crazy Puffs themselves. When we finally launched Crazy Puffs nationally, stores had to make emergency runs to get more kitchenware to keep up with demand.
In the span of 3 weeks, we generated 58.2M Cross-Platform Influencer Impressions, 47M Organic + Boosted Impressions Cross-Platform and 172M TikTok Views from UGC! Was the launch successful? Well, lets just say that Crazy Puffs are a permanent menu item.
