Social Listening Blog - Pizza Hut

    The brand I selected to research further was Pizza Hut. I chose this because of the recent activity from this company on their social media accounts and due to the fact that many people have made unfavorable statements recently about this brand based on the direction their advertising has gone as well as a large inconsistency with their product pricing variations. What really interested me about this brand was that their social media has managed to continuously invade my social media account on Instagram with random videos regarding pizza. 


    The value proposition for Pizza Hut is a promise to provide affordable consistent and efficient services to its customers while serving quality pizza with innovative toppings.


    The brand is being met with some challenges and is being boycotted by people who believe that the recent moves made by this company are questionable in nature. One example is that parents, such as Nick Adams, are demanding the boycott because of the addition of the children’s book called “BigWig'' which Pizza Hut added to its reading program called BOOK IT. Since this book’s central theme is about a young child that becomes a drag artist, it created a lot of controversy. Pamela Hensley is another example of a parent who actually threatened to switch to Papa John's due to the controversy this developed. Although some parents, such as Aaron Hoyland, have come to defend the pizza corporation by relating the situation to their own childhood through stating that reading certain books had no indication or influence on their social developments. I am on board with the people who are upset that this even gained any type of social media presence given the fact that there has been a recent increase in mass shootings including ones at elementary schools. I feel like this shouldn’t even be focused on since there are much more important debates to consider, and also from a perspective of acceptance, Pizza Hut was right in attempting to support the LGBTQ Pride Month by adding this book to their program. However, suggestions of any kind in relevance to young children must be screened and exercise cautious consideration of how this might affect their mentality, and that providing stories that have great morals, but controversial stories need to be saved for when they are older.

        

    The company was definitely attempting to accomplish something remarkable through showing their support for a community. The use of social media for Pizza Hut has allowed them to use targeted marketing to incite a response from their selected audience. Although a majority of their advertising is mass marketing and simply promotes their prices or a new product which anyone can enjoy, some of their tactics are much more targeted. In Principles of Marketing, targeted marketing is described as, “[when] you take careful aim at one type of customer with your message” (Principles of Marketing 122). This tactic is shown when Pizza Hut chose to subtly add the LGBTQ book to their reading program, which is a perfect example of targeted marketing. Although all of these efforts are aimed at increasing sales through promotion of supporting different communities, it also increases brand recognition. The company also used marketing penetration strategies which the text describes as, “[the act of] increasing a firm’s sales of its existing products to its existing customers” (Principles of Marketing 42) which was shown through the company's actions like maximizing their marketing and advertising efforts. This choice was made so that this company could engage better with its customers by using best social media practices. In fact, the social media accounts for Pizza Hut are very active and regularly respond to comments made by customers in regard to pricing, new developments, and other pizza related questions.

 

      One great example for Pizza Hut attempting to be remarkable is their recent post on Instagram which shows their overall recent transition to modern advertising efforts, this post showed several emoji and asked for people to order pizza in the comments using emoji only.



    Pizza Hut has definitely been successful with all of these marketing efforts. Their image is being talked about through different news outlets and their presence on social media continues to grow. They have had a history of having the most remarkable advertisements and this hasn’t changed at all.

    In fact, the social media pages for Pizza Hut are extremely responsive, they regularly respond to customer comments and talk about pricing differences and the reasons behind that, in addition to being humorous and providing funny remarks to various comments. Most responses are either aimed to explain a pricing difference or to make a joke by using light humor and gently poking fun at the commenters. This was a great decision by the organization because this makes for a better social media presence, and as long as the remarks made by the company do not overdo it, or ruin their agenda by creating unfavorable situations for the whole company, then the efforts made by the company simply add to the overall marketing efforts since people appreciate individual responses and feel attended to when receiving a response from a large corporation.

    If I were the brand manager then I would apply the social media presence heavily, I would create a Pizza Hut persona that follows certain attitudes and guidelines but is aimed at creating humor in order to provide a sense of remarkability. I would respond to customers based on these guidelines which would be to create humor through gently teasing. The concept would be similar to the idea of the restaurants that order their servers to be rude as part of the experience. This would create brand recognition and solidify the expectations of customers when they comment or post on the social media pages. Eventually, people would see Pizza Hut in a certain light and then would not be phased by comments, it would simply be part of the “Pizza Hut Experience”.

    I learned a lot from this assignment. In general terms I learned that a company can make terrible decisions or amazing ones, but it really is the perspective of the consumer which decides which the decision is. Even when a company makes a move that supports others, it can still incite a dramatic response which makes every move a company makes important. I also learned that controversial choices are great ways for a company to gain new presence and promote themselves through press and news.

 

Works Cited

 

Principles of Marketing. No Author. (2015). University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. Accessed July 2022 from https://open.lib.umn.edu/principlesmarketing/