Small Montana Town Shines in a New Domino’s TV Ad

Manhattan, MT is featured in a new Domino's Pizza ad campaign.

We write about food (and pizza) a lot because we enjoy food and pizza. A lot. We also enjoy it when a Montana town is featured in a nationwide TV ad campaign. The latest commercials from Domino's have a snow plow theme, and one of the clips was filmed in Manhattan, MT. Population, 2,128.

Montana has been a backdrop for several big brands.

Geico filmed a series of commercials in 2020 in the Billings area. The "Build Me Up Buttercup" motorcycle ad (that debuted in 2021) featured a clip of motorcyclists riding on the Beartooth Highway and a section of Highway 72 near Belfrey.

They shot part of another ad in the parking garage across the street from our Townsquare Media studios in downtown Billings. Being nosy, I asked them what they were doing one day, with their lights and cameras and sound crew scurrying around the alley.

Do you recognize Montana in the ads?

John Deere aired a heartwarming commercial earlier this year that was filmed in the Paradise Valley, KIA shot car commercials in Montana (see above), as did Carhartt in 2021. Ad execs have certainly "discovered" Montana as an awesome backdrop for their marketing campaigns.

The ironic part of this story... Manhattan, MT doesn't even have a Domino's.

Manhattan is an awesome little community; I grew up just a few miles down the road. It largely remains an agricultural town, despite becoming more and more of a bedroom community for Bozeman. The town received a $25,000 grant from Domino's for snow removal equipment, reports the Belgrade News, as part of Domino's new ad campaign.

The pizza chain has donated $500,000 to 20 towns across the US for snow removal purposes, because "cold roads shouldn't get in the way of hot pizza" (especially if it's coming from Belgrade, 10 miles away). Only three of the towns that won grants were included in the video ad: Manhattan, MT, Marquette, MI, and Erie, PA. Watching the clip above, we recognize the Manhattan landscape at the very beginning of the ad and you can catch a Montana 6 license plate about halfway through the commercial.

H/T Belgrade News