In 1995, 87 Silvio’s Dial-a-Pizza stores became 87 Domino’s stores. MJW Advertising launched Domino’s as a fun, youthful, fresh approach and possibly the world’s longest tag line. “I’ve got the hots for what in the box with the dots.” In their first ten years they’ve achieved a 600 % sales growth and are now the number one pizza company in Australia.

Domino’s and its franchisees now operate 419 stores across Australia and New Zealand. They’ve made the news recently with their delivery of free pizzas to the victims of Cyclone Larry in Innisfail, North Queensland. But what’s getting people talking is their attempt to change the Australian language with the introduction of the word, “puff”, as an expression of coolness. To introduce the puff pastry line, MJW and Domino’s developed a 360 degree advertising campaign around the recasting of ‘puff’ as awesome, wicked, cool, the ultimate. The So Puff microsite, SoPuff.com, features ten puff moments in which young Australians relate the phrase, ‘so puff’ to their everyday life. A woman listening to music in a record store says, “This is a seriously puff album”. A woman doing the moves in Dance Dance Revolution says, “That was totally puff!”.

The site provides its own glossary, redefining phrases such as:

Puff On – A Generation Y term set to replace the past-its-prime saying, Rock On.

Inside specially branded Jetstar jets, “Puffection” is highly visible in overhead lockers and tray tables, along with boarding pass and in-flight magazine promotions.

In an article in BandT, Chris Dibley from MJW claims the inspiration for the campaign came from consumers’ responses during Domino’s Pizza’s product testing.

“Those who loved the product genuinely struggled to find the words to describe it, so we decided this pizza deserved its own word, one that reflected the ‘awesome-ness’ of its unique eating experience,” he said.

Flying Fish were the film production company behind the ads. They contracted Power Studios to do the art-design-airbrush work.