Dough!

Mavericky Origin Story

bee-line communications (ugh, with the lower-case) was founded by Stacey McClenathan in the Chicago suburb of Libertyville -- and not in the city proper -- because it was important for her to be near her kids -- theoretically, since she goes on to tell us that even working in the same little town she lives in, she leaves before her children get up in the morning and doesn't come home until after they're in bed. But good for her, I guess.

Distractingly Weird Executive

Walt Frederiksen, Sr. Director of Advertising for Little Caesars, landed on this look in 1980 and has seen no reason to change it since then.

Self-Consciously Quirky Office

CommonGround boasts both a pointless video wall...

...and a ping-pong table -- a purple one!

The Fear?

"I am driven by fear," says Stacey. "I mean, I'm failing my family, I'm failing my employees, I'm failing myself!" It feels like that sentence should end with "if I don't get results" or "land this campaign" or whatever. But she's just failing, apparently.

Backpack Alert!

Here's Ahmad Islam, co-founder of CommonGround.

It's like the messenger bag revolution of the late '90s/early '00s skipped the advertising industry entirely.

What The Client Says It Wants

Little Caesars is proud to use premium ingredients in its pizzas, but its marketing executives feel that they aren't known for their quality. They're looking for a multi-message campaign to communicate the virtues of their dough, sauce, and cheese. They want a thirty-second web spot, and "social ideas": "We want this to be able to work within the social community for Little Caesars." I bet that community is hopping.

Cringily Unearned Moment Of Self-Congratulation

bee-line (God) goes pretty far down the road with a "Pizza Revolution" idea, until Stacey Googles the phrase and finds out that a California pizza chain used it years ago. So her staffers scramble to come up with something else, and end up on #PQuality. "What I like about PQuality is that it sounds like 'equality,'" says Stacey, "and that's a very current kind of feeling that we all, you know, hold dear." Okay, but the "Quality" in "PQuality" is referring to the quality ingredients that (allegedly) set Little Caesars apart from other pizza chains; doesn't "PQuality," evoking "equality," suggest the opposite -- that Little Caesars is just on the same footing as other brands? Anyway, never mind, you have nothing else and the pitch is imminent, so you should probably just proceed.

The...Uh, Pitch

CommonGround has built its pitch on a character: Chuck Perry, a new employee at Little Caesars. Creative Director Mike Williams starts things off: "Now, we all have that friend who constantly overshares, to the point where it actually becomes spam. And you kind of want to tell your friend to calm down a little bit, but they keep on going, right? We are actually going to do the same thing about Perry." In other words, "You know that thing real people do that we all hate but you can't unfollow them because you know them in real life or something? We're going to make YOUR BRAND synonymous with that kind of annoyance!" This strategy will involve Perry going crazy on Twitter with praise for Little Caesars, creating memes on various social media (one we see is him making dough with a "DOUGH-JO" pun, which is actually not bad), and culminating with a web spot in which another new character -- Earl, of Little Caesars customer service -- says that Little Caesars really should apologize, but that he's not going to because the pizza really is that good, and Little Caesars can't be mad about Perry's passion. In a week in which a major brand had to make a real apology for a tone-deaf social media post, it seems risky to me to go with an intentional "sorry not sorry" fake-out, but Walt thinks it's "hip," and if there's one thing Walt knows, it's what's hip.

bee-line (I mean) opens by explaining that "PQuality" is short for "pizza quality," and leads straight into their web spot, which is a mistake because it's jank as hell and looks like something a suburban mom would come up with because one did. In a particularly odd choice, it includes this shot:

Hey, here's something I bet a pizza company doesn't want to remind customers about in their ads: their customers' fat asses and/or laziness! The spot ends with a straight recitation of the dough/sauce/cheese quality, because why make an ad with a fun idea when you can treat it like a PowerPoint presentation? The Little Caesars people nod politely, but it's clear they're not into it. Walt, savvier than his weird hair would suggest, asks what the payoff is with the #PQuality hashtag. Stacey: "If you have the idea of, whether it's a Twitter-based campaign or not, when people see the hashtag '#PQuality,' they know it's digital, they know you're building a community around something, and that's what we're going to build on. We're asking consumers to spread the word." Okay, but (a) what's the word, and (b) what's the consumer's incentive for spreading it? MOVING ON FROM THOSE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: their web mockups look like they could be for anything -- why does one of them have "#PQuality" spelled out in Lego, for example? -- and they quickly breeze through them (perhaps sensing the executives' restlessness) and on to their biggest gimmick: a kid in a fake toga/chest hair t-shirt rides in on a Segway made to look like a Roman chariot. "You don't really need a reason to have a pizza party. You just need Little Caesars." Stacey brings it home: "So that's our message: Little Caesars, PQuality, Fresh For All, Hot And Ready, pepperoni and cheese pizzas, still yours for $5. Spread the word." What I like is how catchy it is!

The Winner

Obviously CommonGround. I never thought it would happen: two right picks in a row!