• Eau de Pizza Hut? Company bakes up idea for perfume

    By A. Pawlowski, TODAY contributor

    Courtesy Pizza Hut Canada

    Pizza Hut Canada has produced a limited-edition of a fragrance that smells like "freshly baked, hand-tossed dough."

    At last, a perfume option for those who want nothing more than to be surrounded by the heavenly aroma of fresh pizza.

    In what promises to be a viral marketing bonanza and the inspiration for late-night comedians everywhere, Pizza Hut Canada has produced a limited-edition of “Eau de Pizza Hut.” The fragrance boasts “top notes of freshly baked, hand-tossed dough,” the company said in a news release.

    “It’s amazing how such a simple idea can intrigue people,” said Beverley D'Cruz, marketing and product development director of Pizza Hut Canada, adding that she has heard from contacts all over the world curious about the perfume.

    “People have fun eating pizza, so we had some fun doing this.”

    The project began several months ago when Pizza Hut Canada asked fans on its Facebook page whether they loved the smell of a box of pizza being opened and what it might be called if it were perfume.

    There were dozens of cheesy suggestions, including “Eau de Pepperoni,” “Devour by Pizza Hut,” and “Pizzaz.” The post has received more than 270 comments in all.

    It was the highest user engagement the company has ever seen, so it began brainstorming what to do next.

    “Somebody said, ‘What if we actually made a perfume?’ So we said, let’s try it,” D'Cruz recalled.

    Pizza Hut Canada then tasked a perfume maker to create a fragrance that smelled like freshly baked bread. Some of the initial samples smelled more like cheese, others more like pepperoni, but eventually the perfect product emerged.

    The company doesn’t envision that people will spray themselves with it, but rather use it as a room fragrance, D'Cruz said.

    Only 110 bottles were produced – each featuring the familiar red Pizza Hut logo -- and distributed to the first Facebook fans to ask for the perfume. Since the creation has gotten so much attention, Pizza Hut Canada is planning to produce another batch of bottles to send out as gifts. There are no plans at the moment to retail the product.

    Branding expert Karen Post called the project an excellent marketing strategy.

    “The viral potential is huge because it’s so off the wall,” Post said.

    “Brands like Pizza Hut have the latitude to get quirky because their target audience is highly concentrated in the younger folks and comedy is a great way to be relevant to that audience. If they were selling banking services, it’s maybe a little different.”

    Smart PR firms now add top comedians to their distribution lists precisely because they want popular late-night hosts to mention a brand name to their huge audiences, Post said.

    Another smart move on Pizza Hut’s part? Creating demand by producing only 110 bottles of the quirky perfume. People always want things that they can’t get their hands on, Post said.

    Going on Facebook also allows a company to do a viral marketing campaign “organically and fairly low-cost,” she added.

    This isn’t the first time a fast-food company has cooked up a fragrance. You may remember “Flame by BK,” a meat-scented body spray introduced as part of a marketing stunt by Burger King in 2008.

    The anchors chat about the topics making headlines today and play a round of "Pizza or perfume?" as they blindfold Al Roker and Willie Geist to see if they can distinguish Pizza Hut's new pizza-scented perfume from a slice of the real thing.

     

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  • Pizza Hut rethinks its extra cheesy debate stunt

    The pizza company has taken down an online commercial encouraging debate-goers to ask the presidential candidates about their topping preferences after experiencing backlash from people who say advertising ploys have no place in politics. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.

    By The Associated Press

    Pizza Hut is rethinking its contest daring people to ask "Sausage or Pepperoni?" at the presidential debate Tuesday.

    After the stunt triggered backlash last week, the company says it's moving the promotion online, where a contestant will be randomly selected to win free pizza for life.

    The pizza delivery chain had offered the prize — a pie a week for 30 years or a check for $15,600 — to anyone who posed the question to either President Barack Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney during the live Town Hall-style debate.

    But blogs and media outlets immediately took the pizza delivery chain to task for trying to capitalize on the election buzz by injecting itself into the process.

    A Pizza Hut spokesman says in an email that moving the contest online was a "natural progression of the campaign" after people got excited about the idea and "wished they could get in on it."

    Pizza Hut, a unit of Yum Brands Inc., says it will still honor the prize if someone poses the question live at the debate. But it's encouraging everyone to participate in the new online version, where contestants must enter their email addresses and zip codes to be eligible. The company did not say whether it would award two prizes if someone does ask the question.

    The change comes after Pizza Hut's stunt became the butt of jokes last week.

    In a segment on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report," host Stephen Colbert asked, "What could be more American than using our electoral process for product placement?"

    Colbert said the prize for a free Pizza Hut pie every week meant that "if you eat one of their pizzas every week, you will die in 30 years."

    The blog Gawker wrote about the stunt under the headline, "Want Free Pizza Hut Pizza for Life? Just Make a Mockery of the American Democratic System on Live TV." The site wrote that all the contestant had to do was "embarrass themselves on live television before the President of the United States and millions of their fellow Americans."

    Pizza Hut's stunt comes as TV audiences have become increasingly resistant to traditional commercials. As marketers look for new ways to engage viewers, the presidential election has presented a rare opportunity.

    Earlier this month, an estimated 67.2 million people watched the first debate between Obama and Romney. That made it the largest TV audience for a presidential debate since 1992, according to Nielsen's ratings service.

    This isn't the first time a promotion tied to current events has backfired. Last year, Kenneth Cole compared the Arab Spring uprisings to a frenzy over the U.S. designer's spring collection; the company later apologized.

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