Papa Johns today (April 2) unveiled a new brand platform, "Better Get You Some," that is the first major marketing effort overseen by CMO Mark Shambura and The Martin Agency. Shambura, who joined the pizza chain in May 2023, initiated an agency review that finished late last year and resulted in The Martin Agency and Carat being appointed creative and media agencies, respectively.
"Better Get You Some" is anchored by a hero spot heavy on sensory overload and soundtracked by legendary rapper Big Boi. The 45-second spot, helmed by veteran music video and advertising director Dave Meyers, centers on a young woman who disassociates during a date after seeing a Papa Johns delivery car.
As the camera delves into her mind's pizza-filled eye, a quick-cut melange of images mixes old- and new-school animation, reimagines Edvard Munch’s "The Scream" and Bob Ross, and nods to a wide range of cultural touchstones, from jukeboxes and "NBA Jam"-style video games to alien abduction and browser windows — all with a pizza-heavy edge. When the camera zooms back out, the woman is no longer on the date: she's opening a box of pizza with friends.
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Marketing Dive spoke with Shambura about the new effort and how it aligns with an industry-wide shift back to brand building after a years-long focus on performance marketing. The executive also delved into marketing initiatives that launched earlier this year as part of a company revitalization plan and how the CMO role is evolving but remains a balancing act.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
MARKETING DIVE: What was the thinking behind the new "Better Get You Some" brand platform?
MARK SHAMBURA: We're building off of the "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza" [slogan], a core truth that's been part of the brand since its inception. We really wanted to lean in to celebrate pizza devotion and the role that it plays in all of our lives. There's a heavy emphasis, obviously, on the product… but we were really looking to create entertaining, compelling ways to not just tell people about "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza," but show them how it comes alive, not just with the ingredients, but how pizza really shows up in their lives. A big emphasis of ours was making sure that there was a clear and identifiable role for our customers to see themselves in the work and see themselves in the brand.
What was the brief for the new campaign spot?
SHAMBURA: Part of my goal here with all marketing that we're going to do is to make it as entertaining and as noticeable as possible. We wanted it to disrupt and we wanted it to find a way to make sure that there is a consistency and an ear worm and an exciting way that people can connect to the work. It's a full-on sensory explosion, it's more youthful, it's definitely energetic. The cornerstone of the brief was, 'How can we take advantage of heroing our pizza superiority and really leaning into that crave moment?' The core of this was making sure we're showcasing a role for our product superiority as well customer truth within the work.
How will the platform and campaign be rolled out?
SHAMBURA: It's full omnichannel: top to bottom of the funnel, as it relates to paid media, but also a fairly aggressive approach, through a re-look of our design assets internally, as well. We'll be taking advantage of our boxes – our own internal billboard. The look and feel will be pulled across all the ways that our owned assets are going to come to life. You'll start to see a lot of the visual cues pulled through to the merchandising experience in our app. This wasn't just a TV campaign, this was an omnichannel approach to reframing up a different way that the brand is going to come to life holistically.
The effort seems to be in line with an industry-wide swing back toward brand building from a focus on performance.
SHAMBURA: Yes, very much so. We have to be a sales-overnight, myopically focused organization. The work will need to include price points and promotional activity, but it was very important to us that brand and sales can become equally concentric — that we can be driving sales and transactions, while continuing to make sure that our points of differentiation around ingredient quality are peppered throughout the work. I think that those can work very much hand in hand. We didn't want to just make another spot: we wanted to really refresh the brand platform and all of the assets so that it was connected, no matter if you're on TikTok or watching it in an NCAA March Madness event.
Papa Johns in January announced changes to its marketing strategy, including a $20 million investment and an increase to the national marketing fund, as part of the company's Back to Better 2.0 plan. How are those initiatives coming to life?
SHAMBURA: Last year, we were on the search for a new media company as well as a creative agency, so that we were building better audience planning, better technology, better buying power in the marketplace, as well as the creativity with the campaign. Revamping our media approach and evolving the creative and brand platform have been core focuses, but there's a lot of other focuses within the consolidation and marketing as well.
We're making sure that we're not just being innovative in the way that we communicate, but being innovative in the menu evolutions, the LTOs that we're creating, our digital products and our consumer experience — 85% of all of our experiences are driven through our digital platform. We're making sure marketing is not just the stylistic way we're communicating in the brand platform, but also across digital menu innovation and our rewards and loyalty program as well.
When bringing on The Martin Agency and Carat, you noted their prioritization of diversity, equity and inclusion. How has Papa Johns' commitment to DEI played out as similar efforts become a focus of wider culture wars?
SHAMBURA: Diversity, equity and inclusion is a cornerstone of our culture here. As we were reaching out to partners, we wanted to make sure that they share that core value and make sure that the teams that show up on our work and the approach to how we bring that work to life is done with an integrated team with diverse perspectives. That's how we've staffed the teams. Our approach at Papa John's is always starting with the consumer, but making sure that as a corporation, we're showing up in a way that's embracing a complete, diverse range of people and thoughts.
As you near your first anniversary at Papa Johns, what are your major takeaways about the evolving role of the CMO?
SHAMBURA: As we continue to need to dig in to drive sales, and have focused more and more and more on digital and more down-funnel ways to connect with consumers in emerging channels, what's been really exciting to me being here has been a recalibration to how we can approach things more holistically as a brand overall.
I feel like the role in the past few years, whether it's AI or digital or other emerging technologies, I found I need to become a digital and technology and IT expert, while not wanting to walk away from a lot of the cores of what I believe are powerful about building brands: storytelling and the power of creativity, innovation and ideas. It's interesting in 2024 about how we balance those, because we have to be responsible for performance. But my background around storytelling and making sure that brands show up in culturally relevant ways is one important passion point here.
The power of the analytics is so extraordinary now that I want to make sure we're balancing not just making all of our decisions on that. There is creativity — we don't just move with our gut — but how do we utilize this onslaught of data to continue to navigate in this new marketing world?
