From Friday, 10 January through Friday, 31 January 2014, Napoli’s PIZZA & CAFFE ran a world-exclusive collaboration pizza called “Smile Pizza,” produced with pop artist Austin Mahone. Shibuya Channel promoted the campaign as a world first — Mahone’s first pizza collaboration anywhere — with sales limited to selected Napoli’s locations including two Shibuya shops. Coverage mixed artist biography, menu detail, a repeater prize campaign, and practical store information.
The pizza and how it was made
Mahone’s favorite food was pizza, according to the coverage, and the collaboration grew out of a television shoot. At Napoli’s Jiyugaoka location, Mahone reportedly stretched the dough himself and completed the pie from topping through baking as a demonstration of the “Smile Pizza” recipe.
The pizza used a tomato-sauce base with mixed cheese, meatballs, and pepperoni salami — described as an American-style pie with a lightly spicy, habit-forming flavor. Toppings were arranged in a smile shape to reflect Mahone’s personal twist on the design.
During the campaign window, Smile Pizza sold for ¥1,000 at the Shibuya Jinan and Shibuya Center-Gai locations named in coverage, in addition to the broader Napoli’s rollout referenced at the top of the piece.
Austin Mahone in the 2014 press frame
Coverage included a short artist primer for Japanese readers encountering Mahone’s momentum:
- YouTube views surpassing 100 million before major-label debut, exceeding Justin Bieber’s pre-debut count as stated in the piece
- More than 55 million Twitter followers and over 2 million Facebook likes worldwide
- “Say You’re Just A Friend” entering rotation at top U.S. radio stations quickly
- MTV highlighting him among 2013’s most watched newcomers
- “Loving You Is Easy” used as a theme song on Fuji TV’s Mezamashi TV before debut, fueling Japanese attention
Those figures come from 2014 promotional copy, not independent verification in the sibch.tv article. They are preserved here because they explain why a Shibuya pizza chain thought the collaboration was newsworthy.
Repeater campaign and how to enter
Napoli’s ran a “Smile Pizza Repeater Campaign” during the same period. The top three customers who ate the most Smile Pizzas would receive a detective Napoli’s plush toy with an Austin Mahone production credit and autograph, according to the original rules.
Entry steps as published:
- Collect receipts from Smile Pizza purchases during the campaign period.
- Within one week after the campaign ended — by Thursday, 6 February 2014 — email receipt images to apply.
- Winners would be notified by shipment of the prize.
Email details preserved from the source:
- Address: [email protected]
- Subject line format: number of Smile Pizzas eaten (e.g., “●枚スマイルピッツァ”)
- Body: name, furigana, postal code, address, mobile number, email address, and count of Smile Pizzas eaten, with receipt images attached
The article encouraged both Mahone fans and casual diners — smiling pizzas photographed well, the copy suggested, even for people who came for the visual gag rather than the discography.
Shibuya store facts (historical)
Napoli’s pizza & caffe Shibuya Center-Gai
- Address: 21-7 Udagawachō, Shibuya, Tokyo
- Phone: 03-3496-5505
- Hours: 24 hours
- Website (historical): http://www.napolisjapan.com/home.html
Napoli’s PIZZA & CAFFE Shibuya Jinan
- Address: 1-20-16 Jinan, Shibuya, Tokyo — Takayama Land Building 1F
- Phone: 03-5784-2433
- Hours: 9:00–24:00 (last order 23:00)
- Website (historical): http://www.napolisjapan.com/home.html
Campaign window on the Shibuya food map
Center-Gai and Jinan sit inside the same late-night eating geography that surrounds the scramble — pizza by the slice, chain neon, and foot traffic that live cameras capture indirectly when crowds spill off the crossing. A January 2014 idol-pizza tie-in is very much of its moment: limited SKUs, receipt contests, and photo-friendly plating designed for social sharing before that phrase was universal.
If you are reading the district on a Shibuya Crossing live view, this campaign is a archived example of how Shibuya restaurants borrowed global pop reach for short-run menu items.
For a present-day budget frame around the same ward’s casual meals, see our guide to cheap eats in Tokyo.
Confirm current menus, locations, and hours before visiting.
