From Kickoff to Close: How La Famiglia Won Big on Super Bowl Sunday

Superbowl Sunday is one of the biggest pizza consumption days in the United States, but for customers watching the game in the heart of Pittsburgh, where the Steelers were out of the running in round one of the playoffs, game-day excitement wasn’t guaranteed.  

This left us at POWER with one question: How can we make Steelers fans get excited, not for the game, but for the food? 

With that, we were off to create a strategy that combined anticipating customer needs paired with highlighting a local business's appeal. 

Why La Famiglia Was Built for Game Day

La Famiglia Gourmet Pizza Company is a local Pittsburgh favorite built on quality, great service, and a wide variety in its menu that keeps customers coming back. From specialty pizzas to hoagies to an entire catering menu, La Famiglia has no shortage of great food that customers love. Additionally, La Famiglia is a restaurant that encourages bringing people together, sharing great food, and treating its customers like they are part of the Famiglia. 

With this in mind, we thought it would be a no-brainer that the Super Bowl, an event based on gatherings, watch parties, and sharing good food, would be a huge success for the shop. However, when talking with owner Michael Porecca, he expressed that while this is true, since the Steelers had not made the big game, he assumed that the shop may be slightly busier than a normal Sunday, but not anything out of the ordinary. 

With this in mind, we were determined to do everything to pair La Famiglia’s great food with an event made for sharing food with those around you. 

Turning a Quiet Super Bowl Into a Sales Surge

The Challenge: Unlocking Demand Without the Home Team

Between La Famiglia’s delicious food and loyal customer base, and the Super Bowl's massive demand for food to feed a crowd, the potential was undeniable. However, we had to navigate a unique challenge: How do you drive record sales when the home team isn’t in the big game? We focused our strategy on solving three core customer needs: 

• Group Dynamics: Providing enough food to feed a hungry "Famiglia."

• The Timeline: Catering to both early-bird planners and last-minute orderers.

• The Value Proposition: Offering convenience and quality at a price point that made sense for a crowd.

The Strategy: A Multi-Channel Playbook for Maximum Impact

La Famiglia uses many services that POWER offers to boost their marketing and advertising. From Email & SMS marketing to Organic Social Media posts, they have an extensive catalog of marketing that has worked well for them, but until this point, all of these efforts have been individual. 

Having had success from all these strategies, a thought popped into our heads - what if we created a unified strategy using multiple approaches to boost interest and frequency? From there, a strategy was created that combined Email marketing, SMS marketing, and organic social media marketing to take this Super Bowl Sunday from an average day to a top sales day. 

Email: Starting The Conversation Early

Something new that we tried on this campaign was having the email promotion that came out the day before the rest of the marketing efforts came out, building excitement, sparking the idea to order, and getting customers interested. This email was sent to those on La Famiglia’s email list, an existing and loyal customer base, and highlighted the deal we created for the big game, as well as highlighting that all orders for this deal would be placed on Sunday, further building anticipation. 

SMS: Capturing Demand

To pair with this email, on Super Bowl Sunday, a text was sent to this same audience group alerting them of the deal, and making it clear they could order now. This either acted as a reminder to those who had it in mind to order or gave the idea to those who weren’t planning, but now realized the deal was too good to pass up. Sent on Super Bowl Sunday, SMS served as the campaign’s primary conversion driver, creating urgency and capturing both last-minute planners and customers who needed a final nudge to place their order

Organic Content: Creating Excitement 

Lastly, on the day of the big game, a video was posted on socials advertising the deal to the masses beyond the mailing list. Not only did this serve as yet another touchpoint for those who had received the email and SMS update, but opened the door for even more new or existing customers to see the deal and decide to choose La Famiglia for their Super Bowl spread.

A Deal Built for the Entire Famiglia

The deal La Famiglia promoted was 3 large one-topping pizzas and 2 dozen wings for $74.99. It was a deal with enough food to feed a crowd, and one that could be customized to fit everyone's preferences (wing sauces, pizza toppings, etc.). In all, it was a perfect deal for a day used for sharing food and coming together over a meal. 

From Average Sunday to Top 5 Sales Day

Performance Breakdown

The results spoke for themselves. According to owner Michael Porecca, “La Famiglia’s email and social campaign for the Super Bowl led to a Top 5 sales day in the history of the shop.” Not only was this success seen in the sales, but the metrics from the campaigns show how well customers received this campaign. 

Email Marketing 

• 16% open rate 

SMS Marketing 

• 23% click rate in our link to order

• 2.5% SMS order rate (3.5% if including email and phone redemptions), well above the industry average of 0.35% to 2% (Klaviyo 2026 report.)

• Through this campaign, the redemption rate was increased 900% over typical SMS campaigns 

Organic Social 

• 398 reached 

• 646 views 

• 17 interactions 

Overall, this strategy created a surge in orders through its structure and showed campaign performance unprecedented in certain areas, the perfect combination for a high conversion rate. 

Turning Moments Into Momentum 

Even though a Steelers-free Super Bowl may have meant lower sales in the past for La Famiglia, we saw the opportunity for the shop to mix a unified strategy with La Famiglia’s qualities that keep customers coming back in order to have a successful Super Bowl Sunday. 

The shop’s customers know how great the food is, so pairing this brand trust with a strategy that drove anticipation and frequency created the perfect storm for customers to think less about the teams on the field and more about the moments they would share, eating great food. 

Combining La Famiglia’s core beliefs with POWER’s marketing expertise, we were able to create a strategy that drove real results, all while keeping it 100% authentic to La Famiglia's core beliefs, using them throughout the process to the strategy's advantage. 

What made this campaign successful wasn’t luck, but a strategy built on understanding customer behavior and showing up at the right time, across the right channels. By combining La Famiglia’s strong brand foundation with a coordinated marketing approach, we were able to turn a single day into a major revenue-driving opportunity. Not only did this strategy work for a beloved local pizza shop, but it could work for your business too. Let us help you build a strategy that turns your next big opportunity into one of your top-performing days.