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That's
just what happened to Eureka Pizza after a successful sales promotion took
sales to record high levels. When sales returned to normal the weekly
sales average was $2,000 higher than before the promotion.
Visual
Noise is our name for inflatables and other outdoor devices that are
design to attract attention. The excitement and word of mouth advertising
that was created by this visual display was no less than amazing. The
customers....the crew... everyone loved it..
Last
October, PMQ enlisted the support of four manufacturers of
attention getting marketing tools to see how they could be used to
raise pizza sales at one pizza store in Joplin Missouri. What you are
about to read is the anatomy of a successful pizza promotion and why we
think it worked so well. If you decide to duplicate or borrow some ideas
from this promotion we hope you'll write PMQ and tell us how it worked
for you.
What
happened to Sales!
The
PMQ Eureka Pizza Sales Event occurred on the week ending October 18th
1998. The Sales Event was Promoted as the Pepperoni Celebration sale and
it easily set a new store sales record of just over $17,000. Using
America's favorite topping as the subject of the promotion and having
the event peak on the weekend just after the paycheck sensitive
middle-of-the-month added some extra strength to the promotion.
Why
do this promotion?
After
a pizza store has been open for a while and at it has found a comfortable
sales level things can become routine and eventually a pizza store can end
up looking like the wallpaper you walk by everyday and never notice. How
do you get customers to pay attention to a store after it has become old
news? You could remodel your store for $75,000 and get a 15% sales boost
without trying. Or you could do what the PMQ marketing crew did with Rolf
Wilkin's Eureka Pizza in Joplin.
Recipe
for Success
The Pepperoni Celebration Sale Using Visual Noise
Ingredients:
1
Pepperoni Banner
2
Radio Remotes
1
Manager who is adequately prepared for a killer Friday Night rush.
2
Helium Pizza Balloons
1
Sky Dancer
1
Walk Around 8ft Pizza Chef (Or Pizza Slice)
1
Moving and Talking Robot Goldminer (or Cowboy)
Instructions
for the Pepperoni Celebration Sale.
The
store selected to be the subject of our marketing experiment using visual
noise was chosen because it had great visibility and some of the best
traffic counts in Joplin. It was decided that the promotion would be about
the one topping that most people can agree on. Pepperoni. It would be
called the Pepperoni Celebration Sale. If this had been a new store we
would have used the surefire “Grand Opening Sale” theme. However, with
the store almost a year old and local perceptions fully formed we went
with the “Pepperoni Celebration Sale” theme instead. The thinking
behind this idea was that no matter how good we think we are, there will
always be those who are not going to like our pizza. There will also be
some who think they won't like our pizza. But the odds are that any
given customer is likely to like Pepperoni on their pizza. Put Pepperoni
on sale and you never know what's going to happen. (Don't worry! If
they don't like Pepperoni, the offer is also good on any topping of
their choice.)
The
promotion was designed to take full advantage of the normal weekend pizza
business surge by timing the newspaper and radio advertising to peak on
Thursday/Friday. Direct mail landed in home on Wednesday/ Thursday to
affect the weekend dinner buying decision. After having layed out our ad
theme and primed the market with our general advertising, we wanted to use
the visual noise to create excitement and word of mouth advertising. To
maximize the use of our marketing ingredients, this is what we did.....
INGREDIENTS:
1
Pepperoni Celebration Sale Banner:
A
banner was made with the title of our sale promotion. It was placed on the
front of the building as an explanation for all of the visual noise that
was being used by Eureka Pizza. During peak traffic hours the banner was
taken to the curb and held by
store employees in view of oncoming
traffic. The idea of having a sale of any kind is to give the customer an
excuse to join our party. The more unusual the name, the more likely they
are to notice and and remember it.
2
Radio remotes.
The
two most popular local radio stations each did a radio remote broadcast
from the site of Eureka Pizza. The first was during Friday Night Drive
Time (4-6pm). The second was Saturday (11am-1pm) which is usually a good
time for Saturday ratings and also helpful for lunch building. The goal of
the remote was to give the impression to the listening public that there
was a party going on at Eureka Pizza and to come by and join the
celebration. It was also used as a forum to focus the listeners attention
on some key long term ideas we wanted them to remember. Each on-air break
was scripted to feature a selling point about Eureka pizza that we wanted
Joplin to know about. When the big promotion would be over, we wanted the
listeners to remember things like; “Eureka Pizza is open for lunch”.
Eureka Pizza has some great Pizzas like the “Eureka” and the
“Barefoot Sally”. We wanted Joplin to remember that Eureka Pizza is
the only pizza store in town that makes their dough fresh daily right in
the store. A written radio remote outline will prevent the radio crew from
using your dollars to glorify their radio station instead of using the
effort to peak interest in your pizza business.
1
Ready for anything Pizza Store Manager. Timothy Osgood.
You
are about to create a sales event that may exceed your normal operations
capacity by 50%. So be ready! Get some extra Friday night workers. Talk to
your crew about the sense of urgency that will be needed during this very
special week in order to meet the customers higher than normal
expectations. Since you will be drawing lots of attention to your store
during the promotion you will be seeing lots of new faces as many brand
new customers will be making an important long term decision about your
pizza store and its service. The crew should be extra patient and willing
to explain all of the details new customers may not know about your pizza
shop. If your operations are going to break down, they will probably break
down during the Friday Night rush. If you can get through Friday night
without taking your phones off the hook.......you've
got it made..be prepared!
1
Red 6' Helium Balloon
The
6' Helium Balloon can be seen from blocks away. It is the one thing that rises above the tree tops and is the
first clue to approaching traffic that something special is up ahead.
Depending on the wind and the proximity of power lines, this balloon can
be let out to attract attention and create curiosity or it can be lowered
just above the building where it tends to look bigger with the store as
visual point of reference. The balloon takes about 1/2 of a standard tank
of helium and needs to be recharged daily with a booster shot of helium.
One tank of helium should keep a balloon flying high for about 1 week
depending on the air temperature. Management of the balloon was minimal
since it was tied to the roof for which the public did not have access. It
was kept flying all week dispite some rain. The 6' balloon was provided
by Johnny Muldar of Arizona Balloon Company. 800-791-1445. Cost of a new
6' balloon is $149. With the word “PIZZA” on balloon, cost is $239.
1
Sky Dancer
It
is impossible to ignore. Passersby have no choice. The Sky Dancer simply
forces customers and traffic to pay attention. The Sky Dancer moves,
grooves, dances and shakes, entertaining viewers with unpredictable
lava-lamp-like movements. It
was created by inventor Drake Diamond (Tube Works) by using fan forced air
through an ultra light material in ways that amaze. In January of 1998,
Diamond's work was introduced to the world when it was featured in part
of the SuperBowl Half Time Show. The
Sky Dancer air system and Superbowl Puff Boy figure seen here costs about
$2300 and was provided by Joe Austin of Tube Works.
800-962-2556
8
Ft Walk-Around Pizza Character
Standing
next to our Pizza Chef is PMQutie Linda Green as she waves at traffic from
near curbside. To the right is Rolf Wilkin, founder and CEO of the fast
growing Eureka Pizza chain. For size reference. Rolf is 6' tall. When
you are inside of the 8ft suite you can look out the peep hole and see
waving hands and smiling faces. You'll hear car horns begging for a
wave. No matter how rotten you might be, people will love you when you
wear this suit. The giant inflatable character is nimble enough to shake
hands, wave to traffic and give and receive hugs. It is amazing how easy
this guy is to operate. He runs on rechargeable batteries that strap to
your side. This operates a motor which blows air into the suit which keeps
the suit inflated and cool at
the same time. The character seen above can be rented for $290 a day or if
you want the complete system, it's around $3800. The new “Pizza
Slice” Character is $4100. They can also customize one specifically for
your store or theme. Promotional Character was contributed by Bryan
Schneider of Signs and Shapes
402-331-3181.
Life-size
Talking Robot
Eureka
Pete was a celebrity in Joplin the week of the Pepperoni Celebration. That
was the name we gave to the Characters Unlimited Robot that we used to
entertain customers. He was an old timer gold miner who sat in the lobby
of the Eureka Pizza and talked to customers while they were waiting for
pizza. During most hours Eureka Pete would just sit there waving to
customers, looking around as any good
robot would do. Every 4 minutes or so, a prerecorded message would go off
and he would appear to remind customers about the Eureka Pizza Pepperoni
Special.
But
at night....when the lobby was filled with customers.... That's when
Eureka Pete would surprise customers with his real live nature. The robot
was wired with a 2 way radio so that the robot operator could talk and
listen to customer responses. In this way Eureka Pete could interact
naturally with and delight customers. For example, one family walked into
the lobby and Eureka Pete said , “Welcome to Eureka Pizza, come on
in”. The family looked at each other and smiled as if the timing of his
greeting was simply a well timed coincidence. But when Eureka continued to
say that there was a special sale going on tonight only for Dallas Cowboy
fans. The family changed it's expression to “You've got to be
kidding me! I don't believe this! (The Father was wearing a Dallas
Cowboy Jersey). There are so many ways to impress customers with this
thing. Life size robotic character was provided by Olaf Stanton of
Characters Unlimited. 800-489-1686.
During
the week at peak customer traffic times a Eureka Pizza lobby assistant
would be in the lobby to make sure customers were enjoying
themselves. This public relations person would be sure every kid received
a balloon and were offered the chance to get their picture taken sitting
next to Eureka Pete. Welcoming and assisting customers was the other
function of the lobby assistant.
The
PMQ Visual Noise Marketing experiment was an unquestionable success. The
inflatables and the excitement they created directly translated into
increased sales. To compare results it should be known that there were
actually 2 Eureka Pizza stores in Joplin that were involved in the test.
Both stores received equal doses of radio and direct mail. But only
one store was given the advantage of the visual noise treatment. The store
that you have just read about had an increase in sales of 46% as compared
to previous week The other Joplin store that did not receive the visual
noise treatment had an increase of only 13%. That's impressive!
PMQ
plans on coordinating another Visual Noise Pizza Store Campaign using even
more neat stuff that manufactures have given us to test. If you would like
to be considered for our next
experiment in pizza marketing....please let us know.
Caught
in the act! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The friendly,
cracking, whisky voice of Eureka Pete was provided by your PMQ editor and
traveling pizza guy Steve Green.
One
variation of using the talking robot was to converse with customers inside
the lobby as Eureka Pete while also wearing the Pizza Chef Inflatable
Costume outdoors in front of the store. As the Pizza Chef outside the
store, I welcomed one customer to the event and asked him his name. Then,
when he went inside the lobby of the store he was startled when Eureka
Pete recognized him by name. |
