Beer and pizza go together like cookies and milk, peanut butter and jelly, and Thelma and Louise. It’s a timeless pairing, and a crowd-pleasing, budget-friendly way to fuel a party. If you live in almost any major American city, most pizzerias are wise to the notion that business really gets shaking at night, and they stay open late to accommodate the consumers whose cravings hit after a few brews.

But in Colombia, pizzerias march to the beat of a different drum. Most of them allegedly close up shop before midnight, right when most parties are just getting started. But in April 2024, one advertising agency tasked with marketing a Colombian beer brand found a way to hack the pizza curfew and sling a few beers in the process.

A Lucrative Partnership

The two major players in this story are worldwide ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) and its client, AB InBev-owned beer brand Poker. For those unfamiliar, Poker is a 4-percent-ABV pilsner currently produced at Cervecería Bavaria in Bogota, Colombia. with a history that dates back all the way to 1929.

Now, the pizza campaign wasn’t the first time DDB and Poker joined forces. In March 2018, DDB created the “Amigos de WhatsApp” campaign, which helped boost Poker sales by 12.5 percent in just two months. Fast-forward to 2023, and DDB helped Poker launch the rather clever “Influencers’ Friends” campaign, which saved the beer brand millions of dollars on potentially expensive celebrity endorsements, reached over 560 million people on social media, and bumped Poker’s volume uplift by 7.4 percent compared to the previous year.

It goes without saying that the DDB and Poker beer partnership has been a fruitful one, and the pizza plot of April 2024 was no exception.

Pizza and Beer After Hours

In Colombia, about 70 percent of pizza deliveries are allegedly still ordered by phone. So, in spring 2024, DDB took over the phone lines of pizzerias after closing time and redirected all calls to “the Poker Line.”

When customers called in, they were greeted with a recording that acknowledged the respective pizza shop’s closure, but were informed that they were in luck, as their call was about to be forwarded to the “Poker line.” The calls were then transferred to a covert kitchen where Poker’s allied pizza shop workers were hired to work overtime. Even Domino’s was in the mix. The shop workers made their pizzas to order and sent them off to the drunk and hungry, always accompanied by cans of cold Poker beer. Pizza shops continued to make money after hours, and Poker made it into the hands and minds of many.

The campaign ended at the end of April, but it lives on as a shining example of thinking outside the box. Never underestimate the power of a cold one and a pizza slice.

*Image retrieved from Rawf8 via stock.adobe.com

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