Why Pizza Hut Asked Customers To Disconnect From WiFi For An Hour

For Earth Hour, Pizza Hut asked customers to turn off their WiFi for one hour in exchange for a free pizza.

The campaign was created by M&C Saatchi and rolled out in the UAE and Oman.

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People usually switch off their lights for one hour to mark Earth Hour. But because “it’s kind of hard to eat pizza in the dark, this year we wanted to encourage people to support a great cause in a different, but just as impactful, way.” said Beverley D’Cruz, chief brand officer for Pizza Hut in the Middle East and Africa

Once the user switched off their access to the Internet, the Pizza Hut Offline Hour website site showed a 60-minute countdown timer. The offline website was made possible with code that was specially built in the backend of the Pizza Hut website. If users went back online, the timer would immediately stop and they were asked to go back offline in order to claim their free pizza.

“Earth Hour typically involves switching off lights between 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., but this is dinner time for many,” explained Beverley D’Cruz.

Pizza Hut said they delivered around 120 free pizzas to customers in Oman and the UAE who successfully stayed offline for one hour.