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More bang for your buck: Hell Pizza offers fireworks with delivery orders

Hell Pizza is offering an explosive short-term deal with their pizza delivery – and they’re hoping it’s going to net them a record week of sales.

A campaign offering a fireworks delivery along with your pizza kicked off last week with the  company opening a fireworks preorder for the Guy Fawkes period.

The campaign overlaps the pizza company’s Halloween promotion, the annual Hallows Eve offer of a $13 double sized pizza, which general manager Ben Cumming says “goes off”.

In turn, Hell Pizza is hoping to achieve their biggest sales week in history.

“With all of those customers who come to us on Halloween it’s a good opportunity for us to also tell people we’re selling fireworks – it’s really good timing.

“It could be the biggest sales week in history – I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t,” he says.

The fireworks have been specially handpicked by Hell, and are not available anywhere else.

Hmmm, what could it be?, I hear you ask. Explosions of mozzarella? A raining down of pepperoni? I guess you have to buy it to find out.

According to Hell, they’ve made almost 35,000 kg of the ‘Hellfire’ explosives, and Cumming says the promotion has been almost a year in the making.

The company first considered the idea at the beginning of the year, after a fireworks importer came to them looking to partner for a nationwide distribution push.  

Hell Pizza is not disclosing the name of the fireworks company, but says they are a reputable New Zealand setup.

From there, Hell had a way to go with planning, liaising with regulators and general “jumping through hoops”, as well as the fun stuff like choosing fireworks from an international range, packaging and marketing the offering.

Cumming says this is the first time fireworks have been delivered to your door in New Zealand.

“We already have that network of pizza delivery drivers so with significant amount of training we have been able to do that where other companies would have had to add that distribution capability.

“We’ve also made absolutely sure we’ve got the best damn fireworks in New Zealand – the most reliable, the safest – and a good range,” he says.

Hell Pizza says it has gone to the legal limits in its fireworks design, but not to worry – there is still the ‘Little Devil’ pack for “customers with younger children”.

Customers can preorder on the website, and prices range from $5 for three ‘Dragons Eggs’ to $100 for a box of 20 fireworks called ‘Into the Darkness’.

It is a high-risk promotion, as it connects Hell Pizza and its image to an explosive product which is sometimes operated at home under the influence of alcohol.

ACC received 2,158 claims for fireworks related injuries from 2008 to 2012. In 2012, it cost them $191,785.

“Around 213 of these claims were for injuries that happened between November 2 and 5 inclusive (when fireworks were on sale),” ACC states.

But Hell says they’re being very careful and that staff have undertaken extensive training for the promotion.

Hell Pizza have clocked another first by working with NZ Police to produce a safety pamphlet on how to be a safe and courteous fireworks user during Guy Fawkes, which is distributed with the order.

According to Hell Pizza director Stuart McMullin the main reason for the promotion was to get in on the potential profits of the pyrotechnics.

“There are good sales in fireworks,” McMullin told Fairfax. “Just look at The Warehouse, they sell a hell of a lot of fireworks over Guy Fawkes.”

Hell Pizza is known for its provocative advertising that refuses to live on the safe side of life.

Pizza Roulette had us voluntarily burning off our taste buds before there was any suggestion of fireworks.

The company made this mock terrorist-video to advertise its Kangaroo pizza earlier this year.

And late last year they released a 3D interactive zombie shooting app.

But the company has been forced to apologise for some of its marketing pushes in the past.

In 2012 it donated $10,000 to Wellington Rape Crisis after a ‘Confessional’ competition on Facebook saw the company give the win to someone who bragged about a sexual assault. 

In 2008 Hell apologised for an ad showing dead celebrities like Sir Edmund Hillary and Heath Ledger dancing on gravestones.

Plus the random mailout of condoms in 2006 saw the Advertising Standards Authority hit by a record 685 complaints about Hell Pizza, which were upheld.

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