Reed Sheppard takes us behind the scenes of his Donatos ad with Rob Dillingham

You’ve probably seen the Donatos commercial featuring Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham going around social media over the last couple of weeks.

You know the one — where Sheppard and Dillingham appear to be in a hostage situation as opposed to endorsing a pizza chain. The awkwardness and randomness of it made it an instant fan favorite within the Big Blue Nation — Reed’s wrinkled, plain white t-shirt and Rob’s “so you should get that” line are what make it so fun. The lack of seriousness (in a good way) probably helped Donatos more than if the two did things more professionally.

And just in case you haven’t seen the video, you can catch up below.

Kentucky guards Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard have inked NIL deals with Donatos.

Fans who use the code “DonatosDuo” will receive a special edition poster 🍕

More: https://t.co/bOMOlHc8tm pic.twitter.com/qU9FVuME0S

— On3 NIL (@On3NIL) February 26, 2024

I’ll gladly admit that I recently purchased both of Sheppard’s and Dillingham’s personal favorite pizzas. I was curious — how could you not be after watching a clip like that? Reed goes for the hot honey with banana peppers while Rob rocks with an overload of pepperoni. Both were delicious. Had those two not created that weird advertisement, there’s a very good chance I never step foot in a Donatos.

In that sense, this was a successful campaign.

But what’s the real story behind this gun-pointed-to-your-head type of video? Following Kentucky’s 93-77 win over Vanderbilt on Wednesday night, Sheppard explained what actually happened. The reasoning is about what you might expect, although Sheppard also used it as an opportunity to talk about the camaraderie he has with his teammates.

“It was right after practice so we had to get the video done. Tre (Mitchell) actually video’d it. It only took one try believe it or not. You could probably tell,” Sheppard said with a big smile. “But that’s the good thing about this team. Even in that, we’re having fun, we’re enjoying being with each other. You can tell how much we like each other off the court. Every time we’re not on the court, everybody’s joking and having fun and just joking around with each other.”

You don’t need to convince us, Reed. We had a good feeling it only took one attempt to make that ad. I’d be more concerned if that was the third or fourth take. You also don’t need to convince us about the high chemistry of this Kentucky team. We’ve seen that since Toronto.

We've all seen THE Reed/Rob commercial for Donatos, but what was *really* going on behind the scenes?

Reed Sheppard explains below, and also talks about how much he enjoyed delivering those Donatos pizzas to folks at the Ronald McDonald House later on. pic.twitter.com/pjoRgJQTX6

— Zack Geoghegan (@ZGeogheganKSR) March 7, 2024

The NIL deal with Donatos didn’t end there though. Earlier this week, Sheppard and Dillingham posted another (much more organized) video. This time around, they made a trip to Ronald McDonald House in Lexington where they handed out their personalized pizzas and signed some autographs.

Even if it wasn’t as funny, that video was much more touching and heartfelt.

“That was really special,” Sheppard said. “We’re really, really fortunate to be in this situation that we’re in and being able to play college basketball at Kentucky and get NIL and do all that stuff. So it’s really good giving back to people that aren’t as fortunate and don’t have what we have. Being able to do that is really cool and seeing how happy they get when we come in and interact and talk with them and give them pizza and give them a drink, it’s really cool kinda seeing them — it makes their day, makes their week. So being able to do that is really cool.”

Just another reason why NIL is good for college athletics.