The Marketing and Brand Analysis of Pizza Hut

Introduction

With over 16000 stores worldwide in over than 100 countries 350000 team members, Pizza Hut is one of the leading chain restaurant in its specialty of Pizza (Pizza Hut 2015). Brothers Dan and Frank Karney in Kansas founded the restaurant in 1958. The shop soon grew, as was what Pizza Hut claimed, to customers liking their pizza and service (Pizza Hut 2015). YUM! Brands the leading fast food company is the owner of Pizza Hut, which also is the owner of KFC and Taco Bell. As was cited by Higgins (2015), Pizza gained gross sales of $13 billion in USA, with a $5 billion margin with nearest competitor, Domino’s Pizza. Marketing Mix Marketing Mix is a tool organizations used in order to achieve their goals, which is getting revenue (Constantinides 2002). Marketing Mix are generally divided into four elements: Product, Price, Place Promotion. Product Meyer Cerovic (2003) argued that a restaurant’s food beverage are not the only criteria that will satisfy customers, service is an important aspect as well. Product Mix is the compilation of products given by a company. Pizza Hut has a product width of five, with product lines of pizza, pasta, baked rice, sides beverages. They have 21 vairants of Pizza, including their seasonal flavors. Moreover, being a part Italian restaurant, they serve 11 types of pasta dises. As for satisfying the local’s taste palette, as Milovanocic and Smuka (2017) have researched on, Asia is the continent with the greatest rice consumption. This is the reason why Pizza Hut in Singapore and some other Asian countries like Indonesia include baked rice on their menu. Their ownership of Yum!Brands also allow them to sell the soft drink Pepsi. softdrinks not associated with the company would not be sold here.

The main competitor, Domino’s has more product width: Pizza, wings, flatbreads, breads, desserts beverages. In addition to seasonal flavors and the 29 variety of pizza, Dominos have added a local spin on some of their pizzas, such as Chilli Crab or Chilly Prawn (Domino’s Singapore 2018). Domino’s also served chicken wings and has flatbreads on their menu, these which Pizza Hut do not have. However, they do lack the Pasta that Pizza Hut served (Domino’s Singapore 2018). It is also worth noting that due to the difference in ownership; Domino’s do not served Pepsi, like Pizza Hut.

Preference of Domino’s and Pizza Hut from people to people is different. To tackle the demand, Pizza Hut brought in baked rice, while Domino used local flavors for their Pizza. Pizza Hut could take Domino’s idea of using local flavors for their Pizza, like for example Laksa flavored Pizza. Innovations are appreciated, and along with their baked rice, Pizza Hut can satisfy more of their customers.

Price

The next aspect of the marketing mix is pricing. Price is one of the main considerations in when people buy foods. According to Andreyeva, Long Brownwell (2010), food from restaurants are one of the products that have the highest price sensitivity. Their study showed that a price increase in these items would reduce the consumption by up to 10%.

Pizza Hut is generally aimed at medium class level of customers. A pizza here would start from 10 SGD. One strategy that Pizza Hut use is Price bundling. This is when a set of products are sold as package, in a lower price compared to when buying the products individually (University of Minnesota 2018). The pakcages offered here includes taking away personal pizza that cost $5 or the pair deal of having a regular seasonal pizza plus a regular pizza with the price of 33.80 SGD, saving 15.30 SGD compared to if the two items are bought separately. Pizza Hut also used the Odd-even pricing. Odd-even pricing is when a product’s price is close to a certain whole number but not there yet. To illustrate this, Pizza Hut’s package deal of $33.80. It is closer to $34, but people would think that the price is still on the $33 area (University of Michigan 2018). Compared to Pizza Hut, Domino’s price is slightly more expensive ranging from 11 SGD to over 30 SGD (Domino’s Pizza Singapore 2018). Likewise, they use Odd-even pricing, with most of their food’s price ending with 0.9, like a personal pizza costing $11.90. They also used the price bundling strategy, like giving two large pizza, 2 regular, 2 bread, 2 chicken and 2 bottles of drink costing $99, when it will cost $150 if bought separately (Domino’s Pizza Singapore 2018).

Place

Moving on to the next aspect of marketing mix is Place. Place refers to how the products of a company can be made available to potential consumers, or how the product is distributed and the strategies. 16000 stores worldwide, customers can dine-in, have their food delivered, or takeaway their food. Deliveries make the products more accessible for customers. Delivery method of Pizza Hut can either be done by phone or their website. This method of distribution is what is called as direct distribution, as no intermediaries are used (Bhasin 2017). However, people can use third party such as FoodPanda or Deliveroo normally to get their foods delivered.

As Pizza Hut operates in a global scale, the foods served in each country would be different. For example, Singapore’s Pizza Hut have Baked Rice, while America’s have chicken wings. How some outlets have exlcusive products is what is called Selective Distribution (Basin 2017). Moreover, how Pizza Hut can be distributed throughout the world is due to it being a franchise. With a fee of $250000, franchisor could get help from Pizza Hut in terms of construction employee training (Franchise Direct 2018). Franchising can be seen as a better deal than starting your own business. As franchising a brand as big as Pizza Hut, the reliability of the brand is known worldwide, people are surely going to come. Moreover, the startup cost of starting the business would be reduced, because of the assistances provided by the frnachisee. This is the reason why people would franchise Pizza Hut, with about 14000 stores, Domino’s just fall short of Pizza Hut. They can directly distribute to their customers, or use Deliveroo and FoodPanda. However, Domino’s Pizza have a policy of 30 minutes delivery time, not charging them if delivery time is more. (Domino’s Singapore 2018). Such policy is what gives Domino an advantage to Pizza Hut. If the delivery time is over 30 minutes, Domino’s would not charge anything to their customers. This can be seen as Domino’s giving a better service than Pizza Hut that do not have any guarantee delivery time. With this time as well, food delivered by Domino’s can be considered fresher. The freshness would affect the taste, and this could be the reason as why people would think that Domino’s Pizza is superior to Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut could adopt such strategy, although it can be deemed copying from Domino’s. However, such strategy is going to attract more customers into buying Pizza Hut, and shows that Pizza Hut also can have excellent service. Promotion Last aspect of the marketing mix is promotion, how Pizza Hut made their products known to potential customers. The forms of communication process in marketing include: Advertising, Sales Promotion, Public Relations, Personal Selling and Direct Marketing. When advertising, it is important to note who the target market is, and promote it based on target’s suitability. Pizza Hut used Advertising and Direct Marketing method.

Messages are perceived differently by each individuals. This is due to the individual’s own biases and culture. Where the message is broadcasted can affect how it is perceived. The advertisement from each countries should differ to satisfy the cultures (Dillard Ye 2008). Biased judgment is a huge factor in this. This means that whoever Pizza Hut used to promote their product is crucial, as some people might not like the person on the advertisement. Therefore, not opting to buy Pizza Hut. An advertisement would be more effective if someone with known pedigree is even advertising it, like celebrities, experts (TMC 2009). Pizza Hut could use food bloggers to promote, as these bloggers also have a certain pedigree on culinary. The other method is direct marketing. Pizza Hut does not use intermediaries to sell to their customers. Customers either go to Pizza Hut themselves to enjoy the food offered by Pizza Hut or have them delivered. Pizza Hut have the service of Pizza Hut Delivery Service, specializing in delivery instead of dine in.