Super Bowl Sunday is just around the corner. Super Bowl is the #1 night for pizza delivery. But it was not this way all the time.  Let me take you back to 1990s.  Look at this Pizza Hut ad from 1990s.  One thing is missing in the ad is no mention of delivery. Early 1990s Pizza Hut Delivery took the country by storm.  This Pizza Hut ad was one of the early delivery ads, which had the catchy jingle, Change for the Better, Change for the best. One market where Pizza Hut delivery did not catch on immediately was Southern California.  I was invited by Larry Zwain to jump in and look at the reason for this.  The research team did every possible consumer research, and found the following: Customers loved Pizza Hut They were ordering from Pizza Hut They showed very high purchase intent for getting pizza delivered to them They showed very high purchase intent for Pizza Hut delivery But why were they not buying?  What was it that we were missing? As a final attempt, I decided to do a series of one on one interviews with customers.  Within minutes of the first group, I got my answer.  The answer was so simple and obvious. Respondents started telling me, that "Pizza Hut does not deliver to me."  Wow, that was a direct answer. When I asked them what they meant, each went on to say that, a year or two back, "I called Pizza Hut delivery and the person who answered the phone got my street address and checked.  Then I was told that Pizza Hut does not deliver to your address." I showed them the Pizza Hut Delivery ads that were running in the market.  The customers started getting a little frustrated with my 'not getting it'.   One customer finally explained it to me and I got it. "I have seen these ads.  I know Pizza Hut delivery is in the city.  But remember that I told you, I called a few years back, that I called Pizza Hut delivery and the person who answered the phone got my street address and checked.  Then I was told that Pizza Hut does not deliver to your address." At that instance I realized that each of the customers (and thousands like them in the market) in the area had a PERSONAL REJECTION.  All the ads on the air were not REVERSING THAT PERSONAL REJECTION.  In fact, it felt that the customers did not want TO RISK A SECOND PERSONAL REJECTION. So what was the answer?  Very simple.  Pizza Hut put up billboards in the market which said, "If you can see this ad, Pizza Hut Delivers to you." When I look back, I felt the consumers were acting very rationally. They took the input directly from Pizza Hut delivery order takers and held on to it, untill Pizza Hut made the effort to change it. Thank you. Arjun   Subscribe to be notified of new blog postings ...

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https://youtu.be/VjqQ_1Fh2c4 The underlying lesson in my experience in pizza marketing is about paying attention to the details and not being scared to challenge existing ways of thinking.  Let us start by talking about cheese pulls. We know not all cheese pulls are created equal, but let’s dig a little deeper.  The goal of the cheese pull is to make your mouth water; you want viewer’s attention on the gooey goodness of the long strings of cheese and create an appetite appeal.  Here are three pictures of the cheese pull.Of the three, in A the pizza looks fresh and the cheese looks thick.  In images B & C someone is touching the cheese over the crust and that visual is not a pleasant one (some may even be grossed out by this.)  No one wants to think about other people’s hands on their cheese.  Hence A is better than B and C, but using A in an advertising will only communicate freshness and not make the viewer hungry enough to buy the pizza now.  Hence we need someone to bite into the pizza and then do the cheese pull. Here are four examples of biting into a pizza without a cheese pull. In all four examples there is no cheese pull and without that there is hardly any appetite appeal. The first guy seems to be posing for a picture and pretending to eat. You are probably thinking, is he going to actually eat it? Is there something wrong with the pizza that he doesn’t want to bite down? For E & F, both are biting down but there is no cheese pull.  In G, the man is eating the last bite of pizza, and there is no cheese pull. This is worst of all worlds. In all four cases, the absence of the cheese pull robs the images of appetite appeal. Finally, we have arrived at some of the most distracting pizza salesmen.  In all cases we have a cheese pull.  For H & I kids eating pizza makes us realize that this is kid’s pizza and relevant to an occasion for a kid’s party.  The price of this pizza is expected to be low too.  This is not a pizza parents are excited to eat themselves.  In J, there is an attractive young woman… right, some pizza is in the picture too.  You may be going back to the picture to see the pizza as you have missed it completely the first time. Finally in K, when people see the last picture they see the president, they don’t imagine themselves picking up the phone to call their local pizza joint.   They may even think it is some kind of a PR news story. Let us take this beyond cheese pulls.  Just like cheese pulls every brand has established ways of marketing. I personally believe that it is important to challenge the existing thinking and find out ways to make it significantly better. In a category where doing the same has become the norm, a change will get noticed and make an impact.   Click here to read more blog postings at www.zenmango.com/blog...

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