Fa ‘za ‘za ‘za ‘za! Boston Pizza’s holiday gift guide is what pizza dreams are made of.

BPWishList.com is a digital guide of pizza-themed gifts carefully designed to resemble the holiday wish books from days gone by. The guide was created to keep pizza top of mind for the holidays. 

Elf on the Shelf, meet Pep on a Step™. Boston Pizza is putting a little pizzazz under the tree this year with the “2021 Holiday Wish List,” a collection of more than 20 curated pizza-themed gift items.

BP SnowScooter™ (which has pizza slices for skis), the SL-ice Scraper™ (a slice-shaped windshield scraper), and The Parma Snow Globe™ (a snow globe filled with parmesan cheese). While BP says it might require a holiday miracle to find these items under your tree, they’re definitely worth wishing for.

That’s why they’re all featured in a digital gift guide housed at BPWishList.com. It is carefully designed to resemble the holiday wish books from the 1980s and ‘90s, which youngsters would peruse in the weeks before the holidays in order to assemble their holiday wish list.

“We all remember that feeling of opening up a holiday catalogue, scanning through every page, reading every single word,” says James Kawalecki, VP Marketing at Boston Pizza, who with john st., developed the digital gift guide. “There’s a deep emotional connection to that routine that’s been lost in the digital age. We wanted to tap into those nostalgic feelings and put our messaging right into that headspace, but in a Boston Pizza way.”

Some of the 20+ gifts directly reference those gifts of yesteryear, but there are also nods to contemporary gift guides, such as the Robot Vacuum Pizza Decal or Pep on a Step™ (the BP equivalent of Elf on a Shelf).

Billboards and paid social ads are also highlighting specific gift items in order to drive traffic to the full online guide. BP is also bringing back a retro ad format in the shape of a printed catalogue that is being sent out through direct mail. It’s all about ensuring that it’s the most pizza-filled time of the year.

“Pizza is something we’re all eating over the course of the holidays, but it’s just not automatically associated with this time of the year,” said Cam Boyd, Creative Director at john st. “With this idea, we’re hoping to change that, and make Boston Pizza as synonymous with the holidays as, say, the carol that goes ‘Fa ‘za ‘za ‘za ‘za’ ‘za za za za.”

The Holiday Wish List follows other creative innovations from Boston Pizza and john st., including Mini Patio Sets, A Christmas Pizza in a Caroling Box, Pizza in Bed, The BP Patio Re-Training Manual and Weighted Napkins. And who knows, maybe with a Christmas miracle, some of the Wish List gifts may be available for purchase in the not-so-distant future.

Credits: 

Project Title: BP Wish List

url: www.bpwishlist.com

Client: Client: Boston Pizza Canada
SVP, Marketing: Peter Blackwell
VP, Marketing: James Kawalecki
Director of Marketing: Niels van Oyen
Marketing Manager: Sarah Baird
Associate Marketing Manager: Gabrielle Herbert
Associate Marketing Manager: Carlyn Mandarano

Creative Agency: john st.
Chief Creative Officer: Cher Campbell
Creative Director: Cam Boyd
Associate Creative Director: Dan Cantelon
Associate Creative Director: Marc Levesque
Art Director: Brian Zheng
Copywriter: Emma Lorenzi
Strategy Director: Mike Strasser
Executive Producer: Matthew DeWaal
Producer: Danielle Lloyd
Group Business Lead: Ian Brooks
Business Lead: Lindsay Day
Account Supervisor: Kelly Brennan
Account Coordinator: Bairavi Sripalan

Production:
CGI: Brad Pickard
Retouching: Nabil Elsaadi
Wireframes: One Pixel Off
Printer: Gas Company