Pizza Pizza is celebrating the Toronto Raptors’ 30th season by offering a 20-inch “Raptors Mega Slice” at locations across Ontario starting Nov. 18. The promotion is an opportunity to drive engagement through content creation, Amber Winters, senior marketing director at Pizza Pizza, tells strategy.

With higher food costs and lower discretionary spending, Pizza Pizza is leaning on its partnerships to fulfill its overall objectives, Winters adds. “There are a lot of great brands out there trying to activate the Raptors so the challenge is creating programs that are efficient to execute from a cost perspective, reinforce your strategy and break through all the other activations to put us at the top in terms of visibility and relevance.”

Pizza Pizza’s partnership with the NBA team started in 1999. Over the last 25 years, the QSR’s “Score a Slice” promotion has been “the foundation of our partnership,” Winters explains, with Raps’ fans getting a free slice at any Pizza Pizza location if the team scored 100 or more points in the game and they presented their game ticket. “As we entered into the 30th anniversary season, we looked back at the nostalgic history of our partnership, which has always been so rooted in slices in the hands of fans,” Winters says. “We decided to pay tribute to the fans through that insight.”

The free-slice promotion has since evolved to allow customers to show proof of their game tickets via the Pizza Pizza app. “Since the physical ticket was essentially your coupon for the free slice, there was a technical need to update,” Winters says. “More importantly, there was a strategic need to leverage the program to encourage fans to join our digital ecosystem as the business evolved.”

In 2019, Pizza Pizza developed the Raptors game box, allowing fans to restructure their pizza box to a table-top basketball game. The effort was done in celebrattion of the Raptors’ championship season. This year’s branded anniversary “Raptors Mega Slice” is the latest evolution by Pizza Pizza to further engage the team’s fans.

“This is the first time we’ve created a totally unique menu item as part of the partnership activation,” Winters explains, adding the giant slice comes in a mega slice server branded with Toronto Raptors marks and brand visuals.