Pizza Hut Punks the Wrong Folks
Pizza Hut is getting YouTube views with a video that shows a guy ordering takeout from the chain—while sitting inside a small independent pizza shop. The video, made by a production company called Mediocre Films in a deal brokered by a third party firm according to www.ViralBlog.com, shows a guy getting “Kicked Out of a Pizza Place” for sitting in various local pizza joints and enjoying a hot slice of a Pizza Hut pie before getting thrown out. Once, told to leave by the owner, he even has the crust to ask if he can take some of the condiments.
The video has been garnering views since it first showed up on YouTube on Dec. 10. To date, it’s been seen close to 300,000 times, favorited about 4,300 and rated almost as often.
But is this an instance of going viral simply for the sake of being viral? It doesn’t seem likely that the video will have a big effect on either Pizza Hut’s sales or brand identity.
First, the name promises drama: “Kicked out of a pizza place!” But in fact, most of the pizza joint operators are surprisingly placid in the face of one customer’s effrontery. There’s absolutely none of the theatrics that made the Burger King Whopper Freakout a YouTube hit.
This may be because they seem to be located in various strip malls around Southern California. I grew up in and around New York, where pizza is a religion. (At best guess, I’ve dined in 68% of all the Original Ray’s.) And I can guarantee that any pizza owner east of the Thomas E. Dewey Thruway would have a bigger, more ballistic reaction than simple disbelief that a customer had a Pizza Hut pie delivered to their table. For darn sure they’d move “kicking out” from the realm of metaphor into literal whup-ass.
But even more, the Pizza Hut videos choose the wrong targets. No one is going to believe that anyone real would opt for a chain-restaurant pizza over the local product. Instead, the videio makers should have parked at a table in a direct-competitor chain, say a Domino’s or Papa John’s. That would have made more sense.
And by the way, tahnks to Google serving ad overlays on selected YouTube videos, I’ve seen two clickable ads so far each time I’ve bought up the Pizza Hut “Kicked Out” video: one from online directory YellowPages.com for California Pizza Kitchen, and one for a site, Pizzeria-Secrets.com, that promises to teach you how to “Make better pizza at home than your favorite restaurant pizza.”
Looks like viral video campaigns should start including some plans for pay-per-click ads, too.
December 25th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Videos are mostly about awareness - the top of the funnel. The “engagement” value is entertainment and may have some positive brand impact. Clearly most people know Pizza Hut but do they know it for the irreverent, wacky brand the video suggests?
Creatively, this seems like the case of the best defense is a good offense - meaning that this is exactly what I would expect a small chain to do against Pizza Hut. They just did it pre-emptively. If a small (beloved) pizza restaurant were to do this, they might even spark a groundswell - especially in this economy. Despite the views, I doubt the Pizza Hut version will do that.