Pizza Hut's celeb-powered Twitch series scores 5.4M views

Dive Brief:

Pizza Hut in November launched "Friday Night Bites," a branded series on livestreaming platform Twitch that runs every Friday through Dec. 18, per an announcement. The series is hosted by Twitch streamer Jericho and features celebrities, influencers and gamers to play video games and compete in pizza-themed challenges.
Each of the show's first five episodes received over 1 million live viewers, for more than 5.4 million total views and more than 26 million minutes watched, according to details shared with Marketing Dive. Select viewers who participated in the Twitch chat received Pizza Hut gift cards.
The viewership statistics for "Friday Night Bites" demonstrate how Twitch can serve as a platform for engagement with branded content. "Friday Night Bites" was developed in collaboration with Twitch, Pizza Hut and Spark Foundry, and Twitch partnered with WME to bring together several of the guests.

Dive Insight:

Pizza Hut's partnership with Twitch on its "Friday Night Bites" series demonstrates how brands can engage with consumers on the Amazon-owned livestreaming platform. Twitch viewership surged this year as homebound consumers searched for new sources of entertainment, and after a summer decline, total minutes watched on the platform is on the rise again as temperatures drop, TwitchTracker data found.

The branded series brings together celebrities, influencers and gamers to play their favorite video games and compete in pizza-themed challenges like haiku writing or choosing pizza toppings to describe themselves. Guests included T-Pain, rapper Logic, comic actor Adam Devine, actor Jerry Ferrara and more. The final episode will feature singer Kane Brown and NFL player JuJu Smith-Schuster. The series also shows guests "unboxing" their pizza orders, tapping into an online video trend that is popular with younger viewers. This type of content marketing had been increasing before the pandemic, and has only accelerated among marketers looking to engage with consumers in authentic ways during the health crisis.

Brands have increasingly relied on Twitch to reach younger consumers who are tougher to reach through traditional, linear media. Jersey Mike's in November tested an interactive advertising format on the platform that offers greater engagement between brands and viewers. Previously, Dell's Alienware brand of high-performance gaming computers partnered with DJ and producer Steve Aoki on a Twitch video series.