I spent twelve of the best years of my life with Pizza Hut as a member of one of the finest regional marketing teams ever assembled. We were good! Shout outs to some other members of this team including industry leaders like Frank Strangis, Dave Reno, Frank Arnone, and Bob Paine. Under David Novak’s leadership and with the freedom he gave us to “Make It Great” our efforts to build Pizza Hut’s regional franchise flourished. Truth is that “Making It Great” was David Novak’s personal vision long before he caused it to become Pizza Hut’s corporate mission.
It has grieved me to see The Hut’s sales and share suffer over the last two-plus-years while old arch enemies like Domino’s and Papa John’s appe
ar to be prospering. I am reminded however that minor share shifts are not at all unusual in this dynamic category. Even the recent share growth by Domino’s and Papa John’s has not dented Pizza Hut’s dominant leadership position or their commitment to maintain it.
David Novak never loses and with his retirement as the CEO of YUM Brands looming on the not too distant horizon he’s not about to start now. During an earnings call this past summer, Novak said, “We’re obviously disappointed with second-quarter results and particularly with the very poor performance in our U.S. business.” He went on to say, “We’ve had our ebbs and flows vs. the competition over the years, and I can assure you we will be back.” In Novak speak, those are fighting words and can be taken to the bank.
Fast forward to last week when Pizza Hut broke their biggest ad campaign ever with radical changes to almost every facet of its brand identity. They changed almost everything and all at the same time. That’s crazy!! Not really, insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Continuing to believe that providing the best quality pizza with great service was all it took to create preference with today’s time starved, savvy, adventurous consumers was a recipe for failure. So Pizza Hut changed everything…their logo, their look, their website, their products, their packaging, their advertising…nothing was sacred, everything was up for grabs.
New color scheme, new boxes, new sauces, new dough, new toppings, new specialty pizzas, new everything!! My first response was this is far too much change. These people are crazy! They have lost their corporate minds and souls! This is way too much change for it to ever work! Then I remembered that I am not their target market. Millennials are their target, if they are not, they better be! I remembered the dramatic impact that Millennial eating habits were having on the entire food industry and how select grocers are capitalizing on these trends while others keep doing the same old things.
I decided to experience the new Pizza Hut for myself and went online, ordered some of the craziest new items I could find and am now waiting for my order to arrive. For the rest of this story, please check back in next week. BTW, love the flavor promise. Spot on!
Millennials, unfortunately for fast food companies, seem to be preferring the delayed gratification of health to the immediate gratification of taste without substance. Especially unfortunate for Pizza Hut is that their new logo misses the mark and their new flavors taste like dirt. Pizza Hut used to be the best pizza. My guess is that’s why people bought it.
Flavor promise? What flavor promise? My pizza was missing sauce and they left no way for me to redeem my flavor promise.