Iconic Ads: Domino’s Pizza – Hungry Kya

Pizza was a unique idea in India when Domino’s Pizza launched it. Only high-end consumers enjoyed it in fancy restaurants. The goal then was to educate and introduce customers to the food. The communication designed was to engage with customers and teach them about pizzas.

When Domino’s had entered India, their menu consisted of many imported dishes and the pricing was also high. Volumes were low, and the company took corrective measures by introducing Indianized items and pricing them reasonably.

In 2000, the time was apt to up the ante.

The advertising partner for Domino’s was Grey. Grey commissioned research to find out why people consume pizza. The common response was – when they were hungry. As a result, the agency attempted to advertise what they discovered on the most prevalent platform, namely hunger.

The brief to the creative team was that pizza was to be seen as a treat and not as a substitute meal. The ads were supposed to almost act like reminders that if you’re hungry, you can order a pizza

While Prathap Suthan guided the team, Shalini Dam was working on this. She and her colleague, Alok Agarwal, attempted several clever lines, but none of them worked. She was sitting at home one night when she had a light bulb moment and came up with ‘Hungry Kya?’

While Dominos wanted the entire family to eat pizzas, it was the youngsters at home who took the actual decision of ordering in. So the campaign was largely focused on the youth.
The agency showed ‘hungry’ as a desire, as a need and tried to expand the idea through advertisements.

An underlying objective of the campaign was also to turn an impulse of ordering a Domino’s pizza into a habit.

This was in contrast to Domino’s approach internationally, which emphasized the company’s USP of “fresh ingredients” above the strength of its delivery network.

Prathap Suthan directed the films with Prahlad Kakkar being the cameraman and music director.

Sales grew by over 30%