Pizza chain Pizza Hut has recently launched a new meal in collaboration with Grandpa Confucius, a cartoon character based on Confucius. It is available at over 2,000 Pizza Hut stores across China.

A Pizza Hut store at Guojin Shopping Mall in Quzhou, Zhejiang province features Grandpa Confucius, a cartoon character based on Confucius. [Photo/tianmunews.com]

A Pizza Hut store at Guojin Shopping Mall in Quzhou features the cartoon character on its packaging and store decoration.

The deal is part of Pizza Hut's "Feng Kao Bi Sheng" campaign, which roughly translates to "winning at exams". The campaign is aimed at students preparing for exams and offers them a chance to win prizes by ordering from the special menu.

Grandpa Confucius was created in 2016 as part of an effort to promote Confucianism in China and represents the urban brand of the Home of Southern Confucianism in Quzhou, Zhejiang province. The character has become popular among students as a good luck charm for exams.

According to statistics, the network flow of the Grandpa Confucius IP reached 300 million people during the 2021 college entrance examination period.

Pizza Hut's collaboration with Grandpa Confucius is part of a larger trend of companies partnering with popular cartoon characters in China. The trend has been fueled by the success of characters like Kumamon, a bear mascot for Kumamoto in Japan.