Pizza Pizza is tapping into nostalgia and flavour mashups with the recent release of its Loaded Tots. The QSR’s new menu offerings include Poutine Loaded Tots and Creamy Garlic and Cheese Tots, among others.
Amber Winters, senior marketing director at Pizza Pizza, tells strategy that “nostalgic food trends have been on the rise” – more specifically, she adds, tater tots have grown in popularity.
“Based on our success with fries and poutine, the tots presented extremely well as yet another craveable menu item to expand our growing fries and sides category,” Winters says. “Additionally, it’s a great option to add during sports-viewing occasions, where our pizza and wings continue to over-index.”
Flavour mashups “remain trendy in 2025,” she explains, tracking well with younger audiences as well as those with young families, two key demos for Pizza Pizza.
“Menu innovation is an important part of our brand strategy with the objective of delivering a delicious product, on-time,” Winters says. “We tested tons of variations of Loaded Tot mashups during the development stages, the options were endless, so it really was hard to narrow it down. We’re looking forward to seeing which recipes rise to the top, but based on the initial intel from our soft launch, the Creamy Garlic and Cheese Tots will be hard to beat.”
Pizza Pizza is promoting its Loaded Tots through online video, OOH, social media, influencers, street activations and display ads along with owned media channels such as in-restaurant POS.
“As always with new products, highly visual touchpoints which showcase the visual, craveable appeal of the new product, along with any sampling opportunity will be key components for this launch,” Winters adds.
In October 2024, in the lead-up to the U.S. Presidential Election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Pizza Pizza launched its own “Bipartisan Wings” campaign. In collaboration with creative agency Zulu Alpha Kilo, that campaign aimed to “bridge the political divide” and “reinvigorate the chicken category and the wings category.”
