Pizza Nova is marking its 60th anniversary with a nostalgia-heavy campaign that’s all about celebrating connections.

Developed with integrated branding and design agency Davis, the campaign resurrects the Ontario pizza chain’s original logo and leans heavily on the brand’s reputation as a go-to meal for family dinners and important get-togethers.

The goal is to stand out in a crowded category that often focuses more on the convenience and quickness of pizza as a meal option, rather than the other benefits a good pie brings to the table.

“Nothing brings people together like great food, especially pizza – the ultimate shareable meal,” explains Vania Campagnaro, group account director at Davis. “In a category that has leveraged the benefit of quick and easy for too long, it was time to talk about what Pizza Nova really delivers: meaningful connections with friends, family and loved ones, built upon their Puro Promise.”

That promise is the pizza brand’s commitment to using carefully sourced ingredients, traditional recipes and preparation methods in order to ensure the brand’s food is as fresh as possible – while also committing to giving back to the community that has played a role in its enduring success over the past 60 years.

“Pizza Nova is a family-run business, so they inherently value the importance of connections, giving back to the community and the important role that their extended family of franchisees and customers have played in contributing to their success after all these years,” Campagnaro elaborates. “This campaign acknowledges the brand’s national success – as well as all those who have made it possible along the way. It’s about recognizing and inviting connection as much as it is about celebrating the anniversary.”

The retro-themed branding is rolling out across all of Pizza Nova’s touchpoints, including at point-of-sale, on its packaging, across its website and through social, print, radio and OOH – including behind home plate at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

“Nostalgia is such a powerful feeling,” says Chris Plewes, creative director at Davis. “We created an eye-catching nod to the brand’s heritage and obvious departure from the everyday masterbrand. It incorporates the throwback Pizza Nova logo and exudes the retro aesthetic young and older consumers are drawn to.”

The campaign is the next step in a strategy that first started to roll out earlier this year, which saw the pizzamakers release their well-known and long-tenured Alfie Zappacosta jingle as a ringtone. The brand also opened a new support office, featuring a state-of-the-art call centre and kitchen, this year – and invited media, key dignitaries, suppliers, long-standing partners and staff in for an open house event to celebrate that opening, where Zappacosta was on hand to perform the jingle for guests and the pizza company donated $1 million to the Scarborough Health Network.

“We’ve done lots of work on our customer experience, ensuring that it’s great at all times,” Domenic Primucci, president of Pizza Nova, told strategy last month about how the chain has evolved its marketing, which has meant continuing to work in radio and flyers while incorporating more digital and social media to reach a broad, key demographic of adults 25 to 49. “It’s really about balancing everything that you do, the right time and space for it all. You have to talk to different demographics in different ways.”

The earliest aspects of the campaign rolled out in May, while additional activations are planned for the remainder of the year.