Pizza Hut Malaysia faces backlash for latest campaign

The TVC, which was revealed earlier this month, features a man proposing to his girlfriend while she is enjoying the new Super Pan Pizza. She later shows her wedding ring to all her Pizza Hut pals.

The print ad, meanwhile, focuses on the selling point of cheese and garlic Napoli sauce in the crust, with the tagline “Burst of cheese and tangy sauce in the all-time favourite pan pizza crust”.

It is believed that Ogilvy & Mather Malaysia is the creative agency for Pizza Hut Malaysia, while UM holds the media account. Ogilvy & Mather Malaysia did not respond to Campaign Asia-Pacific’s query by press time.

Online commenters called the TVC the "dumbest advertising plot ever", questioning the idea of a pizza inducing one to propose marriage when there is no correlation between the two.

New York-based consumer issue portal consumerist.com recently said of the campaign, "Oh, Pizza Hut Malaysia. Would that you existed in the United States, and then we could enter this very special one-two-punch ad campaign of yours in our Worst Ad In America contest."

The site went on to say that the gush of the "cheese and garlic Napoli" sauce flying from the crust is terrifying. “It's got to be hot, and it's going to hurt when it comes into contact with your skin,” it added.

A creative veteran in Singapore said he was surprised at the reaction the campaign has received across the various blogs, as the campaign is similar to what other brands have been doing of late.

“It's tough to build drama when you've got 15 to 30 seconds and need the food shots to take up half that time,” he told Campaign Asia-Pacific. “I reckon agencies with these clients need to figure out how not to be too ambitious with the drama in the build-up.”

He also added that the print and radio ad don't seem to link to each other.

A post on huffintonpost.com, meanwhile, commented on the radio spot, which promotes the pizza as the poultry version of meatloaf, with chicken chunks, chicken loaf, pineapples and peppers.

On the stuffed crust, it said, “In this case two different cheese sauces and a 'garlic Napoli sauce' are getting squirted out of the crust with such cartoon-y force that there's just no way we'd eat anything so neon or so...explosive”.

Early last year, QSR Brands, the franchisee for Pizza Hut in Malaysia and Singapore, launched a RM2 million (US$650,000) campaign by Ogilvy & Mather Malaysia.