Through New Year’s on Creativity, we’ll be counting down the best work and ideas of the year in various categories: TV/Film/Branded Content, Print/Out of Home/Design/Experiential and Digital/Integrated/Social.

At No. 3 in digital/integrated/social, Domino’s Pizza has long-earned headlines for being a technology company that’s a fast food brand in disguise, for its innovative digital efforts that include Emoji and Twitter ordering. So this year, we were totally tickled when the pizza purveyor debuted this departure from the technological wizardry  that still worked to improve consumers’ lives. “Paving for Pizza,” an idea conceived by Domino’s longtime agency Crispin Porter Bogusky, encouraged consumers to report their neighborhood’s faulty roads, and Domino’s would help to repair them. The brand tie-in? Domino’s wanted to ensure that their pies would get to consumers intact. Customers submitted more than 137,000 nominations from 15,275 zip codes, and even municipal governments and community groups encouraged citizens to participate. So far, Domino’s has paved 13 cities and has expanded to program to pave at least one community in each of the 50 states.

Original Story:

Potholed roads are a big problem. They can dent your car, burst your tires, cause serious injuries to cyclists--and (heaven forbid) cause irreparable damage to your pizza, says Domino's.

The brand's latest marketing ruse is to ally itself to the cause of the many people who fume about unrepaired roads in the U.S.: it's asking customers to nominate their local roads for repair at a website, pavingforpizza.com. If their town is selected, the customer will be notified and the city will receive funds to help repair roads. The company says it's already repaired roads in Bartonville, Texas; Milford, Delaware; Athens, Georgia; and Burbank, California, and the campaign will continue for three months throughout the summer. Altogether, there are 20 grants to be handed out.

The campaign, by CP&B, is a follow up to last year's launch of "carryout insurance" for pizzas by Domino's, with a promise to replace your pie if anything untoward befalls it. While, like that campaign, it's mainly fun PR, the road paving promise adds an element of giving back to the community as well.

While Domino's says it's not planning to expand the scehme internationally at present, we think it has global potential: the U.K. in particular is suffering from an unprecedented number of potholed roads.