“Father of beautiful love”, “my father” or “they have lost their father”. The Papa Johns pizza chain has turned some popular expressions on its head to promote its “father dough,” a new dough option for its pizzas. With the help of the Rosebud agency, which has been collaborating with the brand for more than two years, it redefines the concept of sourdough to align it with its positioning and its proposal.

The campaign, launched at the end of September, announces the company’s new product, which, according to Papa Johns in a statement, is characterized by being a light and spongy dough, with a crunchy garlic and cheese base and a borderless format. Consumers can choose the dough as the base of their pizzas for an additional 1.99 euros in almost all promotions.

The launch is communicated with a campaign that has its origin in the very conception of the brand’s naming. It is made up of three different spots, produced by Montaña, that turn sayings that include the term “mother” on its head to reinvent them and transfer them to the universe of “Masa Padre”. Thus, phrases like “the mother who gave birth to me,” “mother of beautiful love,” or “my mother” become “the father who gave birth to me,” “father of beautiful love,” “my father.”

“With the parent dough we want to once again demonstrate our expertise with the dough. The product had all the ingredients to do it: an incredibly spongy dough, a crunchy garlic and cheese base and a borderless format.“commented María Estrela, Marketing Director of Papa Johns Spain and Portugal, in a statement. “From there, ‘The Father of All the Masses’ was born, a very Papa Johns campaign, which plays with those expressions that we get when something is really good and we have taken them to our field for this campaign. Because if we wanted to present a different dough, we also had to tell it in a different way”.

The campaign expands the creative concept “This is pizza, dad”, developed by Rosebud in 2024 to begin a new stage of communication for the brand in Spain and Portugal. The platform has focused on enhancing some of the differential attributes in line with Papa Johns’ global claim, “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.”

In this sense, the new campaign affects the brand’s ambition around innovation and launching new products for customers based on the quality and taste of the ingredients. All this betting on the humor and recognizable tone of the brand.

“We have all been hearing wonders about sourdough for a long time, but working for Papa Johns we had been waiting for a long time for the opportunity to release a product with the name ‘Masa Padre’“said Pablo Lucas, General Creative Director of Rosebud. “We thought it would be fun to transform all the popular expressions we use with ‘mother’. Almost all of them express surprise, and that is precisely what you feel when you see and taste this new dough. There may be other sourdoughs, but this is the true father of all sourdoughs”.

The mass father and son of Julio Iglesias

The campaign has three spots that have been activated on connected television and digital channels. In addition, they are also complemented with outdoor advertising executions, which transfer the play on words with popular expressions and the idea of ​​“massa father” to graphic creativity.

The media plan also includes presence of the campaign in restaurants and collaborations with influencers and creators, who in their content have expanded the creative concept around the transformed sayings.

Original post by @Nachondeo3 on Instagram

In addition, Papa Johns has taken the creative concept to the streets with a special activation that, once again, revolves around the “father dough” and is linked to the concept of fatherhood in collaboration with Javier Santos, unrecognized son of the singer Julio Iglesias.
As the brand has announced, on October 15 it will offer free product in selected restaurants in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza and Vitoria. In order to try the new Papa Johns “father dough”, those interested will have to provide “paternity evidence”, that is, be accompanied by their parents and/or provide evidence of a family relationship. This is how both the brand and the influencer have explained it through a fun video shared on social networks.

“When we were considering ideas to test the product, the most famous paternity test in Spain came to mind and we thought that if we could count on Javier, the idea had the potential to make a lot of noise, just as is happening in the
first hours“; explained Pablo Lucas, General Creative Director at Rosebud, in statements to reason.Why. “The truth is that Javier is a person with a lot
sense of humor and the match with the tone of the brand has been perfect“.

“With Masa Padre we wanted to launch more than just a new dough: we wanted people to try it, laugh and share it“María Estrela pointed out in a statement.”The Paternity Test is just that, a fun excuse to come to our pizzerias and find out why we call it the father of all doughs”.