Imo's Pizza - Square Deals program (2023)
My first assignment at Paradowski Creative was naming Imo's Pizza's first major customer rewards program in 60 years.
Square Deals.
That was the easiest part.
As creative lead, I then helped build the program's voice and identity across TV, radio, brand guidelines, templates, and the app experience. The challenge was introducing a modern rewards program while keeping it unmistakably Imo's: local, inviting, and built around St. Louis' famously square-cut pizza.
For the launch commercial, the client wanted to hero the food and drive app downloads without relying on actors or scripted comedy. I kept coming back to the simplest visual connection: square pizza. Square QR code.
So we built a working QR code out of actual Imo's pizza.
And because I only wanted to do the idea if we could do it for real, we shot the spot practically. Over two days, our team used roughly 25 hot pizzas and more than 300 carefully cut squares to build a massive pizza QR code in-camera. A 6K Blackmagic Cinema Camera mounted on a 9-foot jib captured the choreography of moving pizza, camera, and lighting in real time.
The final QR code actually worked, sending viewers directly to the Square Deals app.
The proof was in the Provel.
The launch also earned organic press without a media pitch after reporters discovered the spot online.
Client: Imo's Pizza
Role: Associate Creative Director / Creative Lead
Date: January 2023
More technical behind the scenes:
Our food stylist carefully cut over 300 pieces of square-cut pizza for this shoot.
Shooting the commercial practically, in real-time, meant a complex coordination and choreography of nimble hands, hot pizza, moving cameras, moving squares, and dramatic lighting sweeps in order to bring the entire process together. It was exciting and intense, considering this has never been attempted before.
Everything in the Square Deals spot was captured in-camera on set, then composited in the final spot. No green screen was used.
Our pizza grid used 25 pizzas, at 2.5 inches per square…we wanted the visuals to also reflect the Square Deals app experience, which now allows Imo’s fans to collect pieces of pizza to earn free pizza and other rewards.
In the end, we used about 20 to 25 pizzas to build the QR code over two days of filming. And it involved a lot of gooey, cheesy, delicious math.
