A Queen Street bus shelter became New Zealand's biggest pie warmer

A fairly standard out-of-home brief for the Chicken & Stuffing and Lamb, Rosemary & Mint launches, which DDB proposed taking 'that next step further', with Goodman Fielder fully behind it.

An oOh! Studio special-build shelter takeover on Queen Street, Auckland: two functioning outdoor heaters with push-button activation, a roof decal resembling heating elements, panorama wrap, floor and bench decals, posters and a 2D roof extension; Mango Aotearoa brand ambassadors sampled pies to more than 3,500 passersby — about four pies a minute — across the first two weeks of August 2021, before the country entered Level 4 lockdown.

Thousands of commuters engaged and more than 3,500 pies sampled on the street; MacKenzie's marketing manager called the pie warmer an impactful way to drive attention and trial. No sales data is given.

In early August 2021, Goodman Fielder and DDB Aotearoa took to Auckland's Queen Street to celebrate MacKenzie Pies' two new roast-inspired flavours — Chicken & Stuffing and Lamb, Rosemary & Mint — by transforming a bus shelter into a giant pie warmer.

The oOh! Studio special build was fully functional: two outdoor heaters with push-button activation kept commuters toasty, a roof decal resembled heating elements, and panorama wraps, floor and bench decals, posters and a 2D roof extension made the shelter read as one enormous appliance. Mango Aotearoa's brand ambassadors handed out samples to more than 3,500 passersby — roughly four pies per minute.

The installation ran across the first two weeks of August, before New Zealand entered Level 4 lockdown. Stephanie Quantrill, marketing manager for MacKenzie Pies — a brand launched only in 2020 — said standing out mattered because of the brand's newness, and DDB ECD Gary Steele noted the idea grew from a standard OOH brief the client was keen to push.

The brand promise (roast-inspired warmth) is enacted on the audience, not described: commuters literally stand inside a pie warmer.

Push-button heaters turn a media site into an interaction, and the sample rate — four pies a minute — made trial measurable on the street.

For a brand only a year old, a single unmissable build in the country's busiest shopping street bought more attention than a scattered poster run.

The escalation from standard OOH to functional appliance shows the value of a client willing to 'push the boat out' on a media-first idea.

The product's own function is the media idea: a pie warmer that warms people makes the benefit physically true at the moment of trial.

The installation closed after two weeks when New Zealand entered Level 4 lockdown; the source records the street reception as an 'awesome result' with no follow-up sales data.