Franco Manca proves that participation beats promotion

Franco Manca’s January campaign made me do something fun, and it’s reward-led behaviour change at its finest.

If you’d told me two weeks ago that I’d be spending my Sunday running around Regent’s Park saying ‘if we run down there, do you think we can make a crust?’ I’m not sure I would have believed you, says Anna Tattersall, account manager, SHOOK.

The concept of 'Map My Pizza Run' is quite simple - get your trainers on, record a run, run in the shape of a pizza, head to Franco Manca and show your Strava art. Then, for every 1km you have run you can redeem £1 off a pizza of your choice.

There are a few reasons why I think this is particularly great.

Firstly, it’s blown up on social and then spread by word of mouth, allowing the campaign to tap into a hyper-engaged community. Franco Manca meets runners where they already are - tracking their runs, sharing routes, and engaging in novelty challenges (Strava art & badges). The behaviour then spreads as the pizza shaped runs become something fun to share across social, easy to try, and you get a pretty nice reward at the end.

A pizza restaurant full of runners in January doesn’t exactly tap into the new year’s health kick stereotype, and for that, hats off to Franco Manca. The chain is showing that foods like pizza don’t need to be left out of the health space, and can be embraced within it. This is such a healthy outlook that’s often overlooked, especially amidst the pressure of new year’s resolutions and insane fitness challenges. When it comes to running, food = fuel, and this move from Franco Manca perfectly reframes pizza as a go to post run reward.

Map My Pizza Run also strips it back to basics.

It leans into the existing Strava art trend which we know there's an appetite for, gets people outdoors, being active, and encourages them to explore more of the areas around them to create those all important pizza slices.

Franco Manca have cleverly managed to increase footfall in an otherwise dreary month. Customers are very much used to January deals now, where deals feel somewhat predictable. However, strategically Franco Manca trumps the lot. It creates a behaviour, not just a demand and allows its customers to engage with the brand before they even step through the restaurant doors. Not only this, but it doesn’t devalue the brand as rather than an easy discount code, the customer has to earn it.

Ultimately, 'Map My Pizza Run' got me and my friends into Franco Manca at the weekend when that otherwise would have never crossed our minds, and judging by the tables being full with groups of runners at lunchtime it seems we weren’t the only ones.