Pizza Hut Case Study

Summary

It is no surprise that Pizza Hut is “the world’s largest pizza chain” (Kerin et al. 420). The variety of ordering options to provide expediency for consumers is essential to their success. Almost considered as a pioneer of online food retailing, Pizza Hut has established “an online business in three years that produces hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue”  thanks to optimal supply chain management (Kerin et al. 420). The company has become a model of success for multichannel marketing by consistently updating their website to reflect their current product availability or promotions. In addition, they operate in a way that still allows for the consumer to order quickly and simply by saving consumers’ customized information such as the pizza they have customized into an easily accessible list, the rest of their order details, and their payment information so customers can practically use one-click shopping.

Tie to Class

Pizza Hut uses interactive marketing to personalize and offer choices to their consumers. Specifically, Pizza Hut’s use of choiceboards allows their customers to customize their orders, so they do not have to stick with a set menu. In addition, while Pizza Hut often uses pop-ups to recommend additional orders such as beverages, side dishes, or desserts, they do not use permission marketing and ask if consumers would like to opt for information regarding similar products. 

Question 1

PizzaHut.com is a website for electronic commerce that emphasizes the ability of ordering anything a consumer may want at the click of a button. Beyond that, they make the priority of multichannel marketing clear because it “is about choice” (Multichannel Marketing par.1). The capacity for choice that PizzaHut.com provides its users with is paramount. For Pizza Hut to become the “Amazon of foodservice” (Kerin et al. 423) is certainly within the realm of possibility. With the efforts that have been made towards personalizing a consumer’s experience with the ease of customization, Pizza Hut’s interactive marketing is successful. With plans to transcend “brick and mortar” (Kerin et al. 423), they seek to become an online food retail giant via convenience and product value and offer many franchise opportunities.

Question 2

The ways in which PizzaHut.com utilizes the seven website design elements is fairly nuanced. The context and content of the website are clear as they mean to provide convenience. If the aim is to convey the variety of options that are only a click away, it succeeds admirably. Customization is in the hands of the consumer. In addition, consumers are not necessarily subject to marketing for other products based on their area. Rather than suggesting consumers “to things they know they would like” (Singer par. 16), visiting PizzaHut.com means that the consumer is shopping for pizza and nothing else. They can save their own preferences and even particular orders that are then added to a list of other options that they can immediately select from and order. This service is called Express Checkout. 

Pizza Hut’s communication extends from customary advertising to social networking via Facebook and Twitter. According to the Pizza Hut case study, “The temporary rebranding of PizzaHut.com as PastaHut.com with special imagery” (Kerin et al. 422) did not go unnoticed and enforced the idea that Pizza Hut, as a brand, is “spontaneous and fun” (Kerin et al. 422). Their commerce is assisted by the immense variety of methods that consumers can use to order their food, expanding to the “first-of-its-kind Facebook ordering application” (Kerin et al. 422), which then even creates a branch of social networking and community for the consumers. Because of this, the connectivity of the Pizza Hut brand far exceeds a single desktop website by utilizing social networking websites, websites made specifically for mobile devices, and even specific apps for smartphones.

Question 3

Choiceboards and personalization systems are used for every individually tailored order. The aforementioned service of Express Checkout is essentially the choiceboard’s exemplary form which allows for customers to choose everything about their order and then have it saved for immediate future usage. This personalization follows naturally from the choiceboard. The two are nearly symbiotic. Based on the individual consumers’ needs, they can then utilize the marketer’s given content to customize, and, in the case of Pizza Hut, it is pizza that suits their specific needs and preferences.

References

Kerin, R. A., Hartley, S. W., & Rudelius, W. (2011). Interactive marketing. In Marketing: The core. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Multichannel Marketing. (n.d.). SAS: The Power to Know. Retrieved from http://www.sas.com/software/customer-intelligence/multichannel-marketing.html

Singer, N. (2012, June 23). E-tailer customization: Convenient or creepy? The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/