Special promotes Hell Pizza’s Kiwi classic with a twist

Steak and cheese pies are as quintessentially Kiwi as wearing jandals in the winter. Now Hell Pizza is relaunching this classic delicacy with a twist.

The twist is, it’s vegetarian – made with Fable’s infamous plant-based steak, as well as the traditional gravy, cheddar, mozzarella and flaky puff pastry.

Recognising that sauce is a key component of every pie experience, Special Wellington – in conjunction with Special PR – are promoting the launch of the new meatless pie by creating the perfect condiment. To-meat-o Sauce, a tomato sauce made with blood.

“Since Hell have taken all the animals out of the pie, we decided to put them all in the sauce instead,” says Special Wellington ECD Mark Forgan.

The new topping will be served in a blood bag and, according to its ingredients, it includes beef, deer blood and “some sheep maybe? Honestly, we lost track of what went in the blender.”

And, while vegetarians will no doubt opt to leave the new topping off, To-meat-o Sauce is bound to keep the “meaters” happy according to Hell Pizza Marketing Manager, Siang Tay.

“This is a bloody good idea from Special to stop any of our carnivorous friends getting their nose out of joint at the thought of plant-based steak.”

The campaign is the rekindling of an old relationship between Hell Pizza founder Callum Davies and ECD Mark Forgan, who have known each other for over 25 years.

“Mark was one of Hell Pizza’s first delivery drivers, and came up with New Zealand’s most complained about campaign for us when he was still at design school. I’m stoked to have his creative — slightly twisted — brain just down the road here in Wellington,” says Davies.

Forgan says Hell Pizza is the best job he ever had — “it’s good to be back in the driver’s seat”.

The “So wrong, but so right” campaign launches this week across OOH, radio and social, promoting the new Steak & Cheese Pie Pizza and accompanying Tomeato Sauce. Numbers are limited to 10,000 pizzas and 6,000 Tomeato Sauce blood bags, so get in quick if you want a slice of the bloody action.