It was 1991, well before cell phones had made their debut and the front desk attendant had just given me a pink message slip as I was headed out to dinner. A reporter from the Atlanta Journal Constitution had called and wanted to speak with me. I purposed to call her back first thing in the morning.
The next morning as I was enjoying an early breakfast in the hotel restaurant I grabbed the newspaper. Across the top of the front page the headline read “Motorists claim they see Christ on billboard/D1”. That caught my interest so I turned to the front page of the D/Metro section which featured a full color picture of our current billboard campaign. The headline read ‘Dozens say they have seen Christ on a pizza chain billboard’. “Oh boy, this is what she wanted to talk to me about!” (Note to self… when a reporter leaves a message return it immediately.)
From the Tuesday, May 21, 1991 Atlanta Journal Constitution
As the Marketing Director for Pizza Hut’s Southeast Region I took a personal hands-on approach to the Atlanta market. I loved the TV and radio lunches and parties as well as all the sports tickets. Seriously, Atlanta was a challenging market and we had the resources to make a real difference through our marketing, advertising and sales promotion efforts.
Revenue from our highly successful Five Minute Lunch Guarantee Program featuring our 6″ Personal Pan Pizzas had begun to plateau. The guarantee was a critical element of the program and featured other products including our spaghetti but hardly anyone knew we served spaghetti and even fewer actually ever ordered it. It really wasn’t bad spaghetti so our team, including Austin Kelley Advertising, agreed we’d come up with a campaign that promoted our spaghetti within the 5 Minute Guarantee construct.
We had learned that outdoor and radio can be very effectively used together to reach targeted audiences within specific areas at key times. The same is still true today for the right products and offers. We ran a saturation level lunch drive radio schedule on the top four stations and complimented it with a 40 board showing. The bill boards were individually selected to be in key Pizza Hut restaurant trading areas with high potential for lunch sales. The boards had been posted the week prior and the radio schedule had just begun.
The board that was getting all the attention was no different than any of the other boards in the market. However, the story took upon itself a life of its own and went ‘viral’ long before viral was viral. Almost every newspaper, TV and radio station across the country had covered this story prominently by the end of the week. Every late night talk show gave the story several minutes of coverage and laughter. Christ in the Pizza Hut billboard in Atlanta was THE story of the week from coast to coast. We estimated that Pizza Hut received over $7 million value in paid media without having to spend one cent or lift one finger to get it.
Spaghetti sales went through the roof in Atlanta and everywhere else. Our business goals were easily surpassed and we had a lot of fun. The highlight of the week for me was when our local favorite Mike Luckovich dedicated a cartoon in the paper on Thursday of that week to the story. The Austin Kelley Advertising team purchased and presented the original artwork for that cartoon to me in commemoration of Spaghetti Junction.
From Thursday, May 23, 1991 Atlanta Journal Constitution
I remember seeing this in the newspaper in Allentown, PA! To think it was your ad, Brian!