When Pizza Hut launched its new range of pasta – including some non-traditional versions – they decided to get a stamp of approval from the toughest critics – the Italians themselves.
The range deliberately departs from Italian culinary convention, embracing creamy, heavily sauced dishes that sit outside the Italian cookbook rules. Rather than positioning the range as authentic or Italian-inspired, the brand leaned into an angle that highlighted the lack of it.
Created and conceptualised by Publicis Middle East, the campaign adopts a very self-aware and humorous approach.
The idea hinges on the irony of a global pizza brand associated with seeking validation from Italians, despite not existing in Italy itself. With Italian cuisine being famously policed by passionate, opinionated, purist Italians on what is considered to be appropriate and good enough, the brand sought to seek its approval in a different way – by reframing who is Italian.
The campaign centres on a filmed social experiment that was disguised as a taste test. It brought together two different groups of Italians: one group featured a group of Italians all raised in Italy, who held a strong cultural attachment to Italian food, and the other group consisted of Italian passport holders that were raised abroad in countries like Kazakhstan, Lebanon and Japan, who were open to fusion interpretations of Italian food.
The campaign’s content was driven by these clashing personalities and sharply opposing opinions captured on camera.
While the traditionally raised Italians expressed hesitation, the non-traditional group responded more positively to pasta, causing a disagreement within the group.
Rather than seeking unanimous approval, the campaign embraces the disagreement over the pasta – positioning debate itself as validation and leaning into the cultural tension to position Pizza Hut as a self-aware and rule-breaking brand that still provides great taste.
“We know our pasta isn’t what most would call conventional. But that’s what Pizza Hut is all about. Instead of hiding from it, we took it head-on. And it worked! Challenging something as sacred as Italian pasta felt like the natural next step for a brand that’s never played it safe (as you’ve all seen on our pizzas). We’ve always built our menu by doing what others wouldn’t and proving that great taste doesn’t have to follow the rules. That’s why none of our menu items do,” shared Ahmad Hasan, Marketing Manager at Pizza Hut Middle East.
Augusto Correia, Creative Director at Publicis Middle East, says the campaign’s success lies in its willingness to be self-aware rather than defensive: “When a brand is brave enough to laugh at itself, that’s when people truly connect. It makes the brand feel real and relatable. Honesty is human. Perfection isn’t. And perfection never made anyone laugh.”
During the initial launch, the campaign was supported with a hero film, which was then later segmented into smaller videos for social media using the reactions and quotes pulled directly from the shoot but intentionally taken out of context to create bite-size moments of comedy and gags, further leaning into self-awareness and humour.
The campaign was later extended with a short documentary exploring the cultural tension between the two groups. While framed around food, the campaign also explores questions of cultural identity – who gets to define authenticity and how those definitions shift – making the content relatable for the audience.
Dining and Cooking