The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2025
Pizza Hut Malaysia projects its new pizza onto real smoke
For the Raya launch of Pizza Ayam Bakar, smoke itself became the screen: the world's first smoky billboard.
Pizza Hut Malaysia
What it had to solve
For Raya, Pizza Hut Malaysia launched Pizza Ayam Bakar, a pizza inspired by the smoky flame-grilled chicken of Ramadan bazaars. Every brand in the season was pushing a limited-time Raya offer, and the challenge was to make one product feel genuinely different rather than just another seasonal launch.
How it works
Every Ramadan, Malaysian brands crowd the season with limited-time food offers, so Pizza Hut needed more than another launch film for its Raya product Pizza Ayam Bakar. The pizza took its flavour from bazaar ayam bakar — flame-grilled chicken cooked over smoke — and the launch idea took that literally: smoke would be the medium, not the decoration.
With creative agency MBCS, Pizza Hut installed a smoke-projection billboard above an outlet near one of Kuala Lumpur's busiest Ramadan bazaars. A smoke machine generated a plume while a projector threw moving images onto it, alternating the words 'Pizza ayam bakar' with footage of the pizza being pulled apart. The agency described it as sending literal smoke signals to lure bazaar-goers to the outlet.
The billboard was supported by activations at local bazaars and an in-store contest, 'Say My Loaded Name', in which customers recited the pizza's long tongue-twister name in under ten seconds for a chance to win free pizza. The campaign ran through the Raya season into the end of April, and the smoky billboard was recognised at the Kancil Awards 2025 with a bronze in brand environment and retail design.
Why it lands
- Projecting onto real smoke turned the launch into an event that looked impossible to fake — a moving image hanging in the air above a bazaar.
- Placing the billboard next to a Ramadan bazaar met the audience in the middle of the ayam bakar ritual the product was borrowing.
- The tongue-twister contest gave the awkwardly long product name a reason to exist: saying it aloud became the game, and the name became memorable.
- Smoke signals referenced a shared cultural language of communication, letting an outdoor ad feel like a story rather than a poster.
What it did
The projection made smoke itself the medium: instead of rendering smoke as a design element on a static board, the launch was visible only as an image floating in the real thing. The agency credited the execution with driving curiosity and conversation on the ground and online, and the work earned recognition at the Kancil Awards 2025, including a bronze in brand environment and retail design.
What you can take
When the product's whole story is a sensation such as smoke, don't describe the sensation — hand the medium itself the message, and the novelty becomes the proof.
Since then
The smoky billboard ran through the Ramadan-to-Raya season into the end of April 2025, with the bazaar activation and in-store contest carrying the launch in parallel. The campaign entered the Kancil Awards 2025, where it was recognised in brand environment and retail design, and Pizza Hut Malaysia and MBCS kept the cultural-food territory for later launches — the same agency pairing had introduced the Pizza Hut melts burger the previous August, building on a shared Ramadan-Raya food language.
Sources
- Smoky Billboard — Kancil Awards 2025 winners entry
- Pizza Hut MY is sending literal smoke signals to promote 'Pizza Ayam Bakar' offering
- Pizza Hut MY's smoky stunt teases new chicken pizza
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