Pizza Hut mutates Twitch streamer into ‘Ninja Turtle’

Dive Brief:

Pizza Hut on July 28 will turn a popular VTuber into "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" character Donatello during its "Friday Night Bites" stream on Twitch, per details shared with Marketing Dive. A VTuber is an online entertainer who uses a computer-generated avatar.
Beginning at 1 p.m. PST, Twitch streamers and the VTuber will play "Among Us" for a four-hour stream. Consumers who tune in can win Pizza Hut gift cards as part of a custom segment that challenges them to guess an image as it is slowly revealed.
The Twitch event is part of Pizza Hut’s ongoing tie-up with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem," due in theaters nationwide Aug. 2 with sneak previews beginning on July 29, and looks to make an organic connection with gaming culture.

Dive Insight:

Pizza Hut is bringing its tie-up with the latest "Ninja Turtles" movie to its long-running Twitch livestream series, delivering its own dose of "Mutant Mayhem" by transforming a popular VTuber into purple-masked Donatello — the biggest gamer of the "Turtles," according to press materials.

VTubers with computer-generated avatars are popular figures on the Amazon-owned platform, which averages more than 31 million daily visitors — many of them younger consumers difficult to reach through traditional channels. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes last year partnered with Twitch’s Brand Partnership Studio to transform Tony the Tiger into an interactive VTuber.

The activation is part of Pizza Hut's "Friday Night Bites" effort, which it launched on Twitch in November 2020 during a heightened period of at-home activations due to pandemic-related restrictions. Each of the show’s first five episodes received over 1 million live viewers, for more than 5.4 million total views and more than 26 million minutes watched.

While Twitch now shares consumer attention with a range of post-pandemic activities, it remains a tool for brands looking to engage with younger viewers. Early adopter Chipotle this year became the first restaurant brand to give free food as a viewer reward on the platform, while State Farm returned to the platform last month for its second esports competition.

To encourage consumers to participate in the "Turtles"-themed livestream, the brand will run a "What the Hut Challenge" mini-game that challenges the guest VTuber to guess an image as it is slowly revealed by digitally removing slices of a pizza that is covering the image. The faster the image is guessed, the more rewards participants will receive.

The latest "Friday Night Bites" livestream continues a Pizza Hut tie-up with "Mutant Mayhem" that began with a text-powered "Underground Deliveries" effort in June. In addition to a co-branded TV spot, Pizza Hut will also feature in several scenes as part of an in-movie integration. The campaign continues a long-standing relationship between the chain and the enduring franchise.