Since CMO Jenna Bromberg joined Papa Johns in November 2024, the pizza chain has rolled out several activations designed to drive cultural relevance for the brand, from garlic sauce bath bombs and dough-shaped stress balls to deli-themed pop-ups and quests for Michelin stars.
Papa Johns this week made what could be its most significant cultural push yet, teaming up with Disney and Pixar for a global effort around “Toy Story 5,” which hits theaters on June 19. The partnership is one of the chain’s biggest international collaborations to date and the first pizza collaboration for a “Toy Story” release.
“‘Toy Story’ is the culmination of all of the work that we have started to do to create momentum over the last year and a half,” Bromberg told Marketing Dive. “There are not a lot of franchises out there that have this kind of enduring staying power and multigenerational appeal.”
The partnership with the animated franchise allows the chain to celebrate the joy and togetherness of family occasions. Beyond the usual menu and merchandise opportunities that such tie-ups represent, Papa Johns also has moves planned that could see the chain activate around the film’s in-universe pizza spot, Pizza Planet.
“There is a natural tie to pizza within the films that you may or may not see us tap into meaningfully over the next few months as we bring this partnership to life,” Bromberg said.
The campaign around “Toy Story 5” and other marketing efforts remain key to Papa Johns’ turnaround. The company today announced that North America comparable sales decreased 6.4% from a year ago amid a difficult consumer environment and a QSR marketplace heavy with competition around promotions.
Marketing Dive spoke with Bromberg about how the movie collaboration will come to life, what recent moves around marketing co-ops and agency partners mean for the brand and how the chain is working with Google Cloud around artificial intelligence.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
MARKETING DIVE: How is Papa Johns making the most of the partnership with Disney and Pixar?
JENNA BROMBERG: What's cool about this one is we are activating globally — this isn't just a North America program. For the first time ever, we are doing this program in over 40 countries around the world. It's not just multigenerational, but it's something that spans the planet. We are activating in different ways in different markets, based on the audience and the market.
The most important thing was to have this tangible experience that could only come from Papa Johns. That's not necessarily the experiential activations, which we will certainly be doing, but tying it to a really special product was really important to us. We're going to have three illustrated, collectible boxes with some of the “Toy Story” characters, and we have three character-inspired recipes on our menu that are really special. They've got different flavor profiles for different folks in the family. We also have our new Rootin’ Tootin’ Ranch Dip sauce.
Above that, we have collectibles in certain markets. We have different experiential elements that draw directly from the pizza elements in some of the films, and we have tons of great social content. Our TV spot was animated by Pixar, so you will see some of the characters show up in a Papa Johns kitchen and play around with some of our better ingredients. Finally, our “Toy Story” in-app game is just for our Papa Rewards members, and you can win points toward Papa Dough to be spent in the app.
Speaking of Papa Rewards, how are you bringing members in and using first-party data in your marketing efforts?
Loyalty has been a significant engine for us for years. We were actually an innovator and a pioneer in the space: We were one of the first QSR brands with a loyalty program. Papa Rewards has gone through a few different evolutions. Most notably, we went through an evolution at the end of 2024 to make it a really rich cashback program. Consumers find it very simple, easy to engage with, et cetera, and we find that our loyalty members are more engaged, obviously, than our nonloyalty members. This year, we have started to do much more personalization, giving different members different offers based on their tastes and their preferences.
A couple of weeks ago, we launched Lou AI, which is our AI-powered ordering agent. It was meant to solve a few different consumer problems. One of the most common questions that we get is, “I have a group with X number of people, how much pizza should I order?” Lou AI helps to solve that problem in this really sleek, quick way. It also will find great deals for you and apply them based on what's in your cart. It’s a fast ordering experience, and the best part is you can do it totally hands-free and just speak your order.
Google's helped us develop the AI platform, and we're really pleased with some of the early results. With the Google partnership, there's much more around the corner to come from that, but that was our first big project with them.
Beyond deals and price point, how can you differentiate Papa Johns’ value in a space where your competitors also market around value?
There are a few things that have always inherently been a part of our brand. Value is what you get for what you pay, and our “better ingredients, better pizza” promise has been a huge part of the value equation for our brand for a long time. We also are the only brand that has always given a free cup of garlic sauce and that free peperoncini with every pizza order, and that is something that consumers find tremendous value in.
For the last couple of years, we have been continuing to promote our $6.99 Papa Pairings menu, which is our mix-and-match value menu that consumers come back to again and again. Over the last few months, we’ve put some new items into Papa Pairings to keep it fresh and interesting.
You're going to see some new stuff come to Papa Pairings over the next couple of months, but it really is this combo of the core equities of the brand, beyond just price: the everyday value that we bring into Papa Pairings and the innovation that we bring into our brand.
Papa Johns recently brought back marketing co-ops. How is that playing out so far?
We have about 50 co-ops set up; that is about 50% of our system. That has enabled a couple things. Pizza is a game played nationally but won locally, that's something our CEO has said over and over, and he's absolutely right: To be your local neighborhood pizzeria is such a privilege, and it requires on-the-ground community engagement, whether that's working with your local schools or different organizations through their Chamber of Commerce, or it's sponsoring the local sports team, whether it's the college team, the MLB team or even the little league teams.
The other piece that the local co-ops are enabling is better coordination between our national marketing programs and our local marketing, whether that's how offers come to life on third-party platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats, or how a local carry-out offer might be able to complement something like a national innovation message. It's really allowed much better and more cohesive total marketing plans to come together between national and local.
Papa Johns appointed Leo Chicago as its agency of record about six months ago. What do they bring to the table?
Leo has been an amazing partner so far, and The Martin Agency was an amazing partner as well. When I came on, the very first thing that we did was start talking about one of our secret sauces, which is our craft. When you go into a Papa Johns restaurant, one of the things that really strikes you is the passion of our team members who are crafting the pizza.
The plan was always to start by highlighting the craft and the passion of our people through the “Meet the Makers” campaign, and then pivot into much more focus on our product. What you've been seeing from Leo Chicago is a tremendous amount of romancing some of the new innovation that we have come out with in 2026. We're flipping the camera from our people down onto our product. Leo has done a fabulous job bringing that to life, both in TV creative and social creative, as well.
