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Do pizza company leaders view their pizza box and other
packaging as a marketing weapon? Some
would reply, “YES.” In fact, however, most of them do not view it that
way.
Most
pizza companies ignore
packaging as a tool and, instead, view it as merely a carrying vessel.
That
being the case, the driving factor behind packaging development is cost
reduction. In the pizza industry, the locus of packaging development
resides in
purchasing rather than in marketing. We believe that by viewing
packaging as a
marketing weapon rather than as a carrying vessel a company will
greatly
enhance its bottom line. Here's why ... and how to do it.
The Two
Dimensions of Packaging
When most pizzeria owners think of
packaging, graphics is what comes to mind. However, packaging actually
consists
of two dimensions: graphics and structure. Structure is the
architecture and
graphics is the paint job. Most tend to ignore structure as a player in
package
design and marketing strategy. Unfortunately, viewing a corrugated
pizza box as
merely “cardboard with printing” shackles our ability to maximize
packaging's
effectiveness as a marketing tool.
Still,
that's the way many pizza
industry executives view packaging. They see it as “just a box.” They
cite
focus group research, which appears to support the notion that
pizza-buyers
don't care about the box. So they continue on with the same carton
they've had
for the last 10, 20, or 30 years, and which 5,000 of their competitors
continue
on with as well. But is that a correct conclusion? Is that the most
profitable
perspective?
Scientific
research tells us that
packaging influences consumer's perception. So is it likely that
consumers are
somehow immune to being influenced by pizza packaging? No way!
Interestingly,
at least some research has apparently suggested a connection between
the
packaging and perceived product quality. Buried in the February 28,
2000, issue
of Nation's Restaurant News is this revealing quote: “...said Tim
McIntyre,
vice president of corporation communications for Domino's Pizza, ‘our
research
indicates that in blind taste tests we do as well or better than our
competitors. But when you put the same pizza in a Domino's box, the
perception
of our quality goes down.’”
Pre-purchase
and Post-purchase
Impact
When most folks think of packaging's
impact, they think of what they encounter as they roam a supermarket or
department store. This is pre-purchase impact. However, there is
another form
of packaging interaction: Post-purchase impact. It occurs after the
purchase
and, typically, in the consumer's home.
The
Post-purchase Bonanza
Amazingly, except for the actual
pizza, your pizza packaging is the vehicle of greatest exposure and
consumer
interaction in your business! That's because (a) the packaging has the
highest
frequency of customer contact of any element in your business and (b)
it has
the longest duration of customer contact of any element in the
business. Here's
why that is.
Customer
Contact Frequency: For each
delivery/carry-out pizza sold, an average of 2.5 persons have contact
with the
box. So a pizza store that sells 50,000 pizzas annually has 125,000
customer
contacts per year with the box (50,000 X 2.5).
Customer
Contact Duration: With each
purchase, a typical consumer spends at least 10 minutes viewing and
interacting
with your packaging! (About 20 percent of them even save the box for
another 12
hours in the refrigerator.) In that period the customer views it, reads
it,
feels it, transports it and operationally interacts with it. Yes,
believe or
not, the typical consumer spends more time viewing and interacting with
your
pizza box than with all of your advertising, signage, building, and
service
staff put together.
So
what's the result of these two
factors combined? For a pizza store that sells 50,000 pizzas annually,
its box
garners a whopping 1,250,000 minutes, or 20,833 hours, of customer
contact time
per year. Nothing else even comes close.
Multi-dimensional
Marketing Impact
Packaging impacts sales via brand
building, differentiation building, impression building and quality
building.
In brand building, we use packaging to get consumers to associate our
product
with a particular name or trademark. In differentiation, we use it to
define
our point of difference and drive it into the consumer psyche. With
impression
building we use it to create a particular overall positive impression
that we
want consumers to have of our enterprise. In effect, impression
building is the
process of attaching positive feelings to our brand. How can packaging
be put
to work in impression building? One way is to apply box graphics that
reinforce
the impression we want to create.
Quality-building
We measure quality in two
dimensions: (1) as customer perceptions and (2) as product
characteristics.
Ultimately, perception is all that matters. We should view the second
dimension
merely as a way to achieving desired results in the first.
Interestingly,
packaging plays an important role in both dimensions.
Quality
Enhancement Issues
When pizza company executives speak
of product quality, it's ingredients and pizza-making methods that
they're
usually referring to. Fact is, packaging plays a crucial role, as well.
The
point to realize is that what counts is not what a pizza is like when
it comes
from the oven but, rather, what it's like when being eaten. The
difference can
be substantial. So when we speak of quality we're talking about quality
at the
point of consumption, as opposed to the point of production.
Here
are some issues to illustrate.
A quality pizza is one that's cut all the way through. A half-cut pizza
where a
customer must rip one slice from another detracts from the pizza-eating
experience. Further, a quality pizza is one in which the slices contact
one
another, or aren't spread apart. Slice spreading also occurs when a
pizza
that's cut on a peel or board is slid into the box. When slices
separate, it
not only looks sloppy but it also allows sauce and cheese to ooze into
the
space between slices. Further, when a consumer picks up such a slice,
the
cheese and toppings often slide off the crust and remain in the box.
Also,
quality pizza is one that's in its original shape (typically, round)
when it
arrives at the customer's door. Finally,
a quality pizza is one that arrives hot and remains hot. Choose a
packaging
option that delivers a quality product.
Promotion-building
For decades pizzeria operators have
affixed advertising pieces, or boxtoppers, to their pizza boxes. What
the
customer receives is a box with a wrinkled, crookedly positioned piece
of paper
glued on top of a company logo. In removing the paper it gets torn, and
remaining is an ugly little glue spot with a paper strip attached. What
impression does this create?
To
overcome this problem, one
strategy is to create box graphics designed to integrate with a
particular-size
boxtopper. For optimal impact, attach the boxtopper with removable glue
or tape
and position it with care. Another strategy is to use a boxcard instead
of a
boxtopper. A boxcard is a business-card size piece containing a promo
offer.
Instead of gluing it to the cover, it's slipped between the side panels
of the
box. When the customer opens the box the card flips out onto the table.
Superior
Side-item Packaging
The recent menu explosion in side
items (breadsticks, chicken wings, poppers, etc.) ushers in the need
for
economical, efficient, crush-resistant side-item packaging. Many of
these
carton concepts contain exciting, unique features and designs. For
example,
some are equipped with a separate compartment for sauce cups, as
required by
some health departments.
New
Products
Box carriers are a new packaging
item. These ‘carriers’ are like a sideless bag that allows you to place
multiple boxes in a sling-like carrier that has a handle. Your drivers
or
customers carry the pizzas just as if they were in a bag and they can
have your
logo or name printed on the side.
PCE
is another Hot Feature of the
Future. PCE stands for Pizza Carton Elevation. It results from placing
legs on
a corrugated pizza carton (previously referred to as Hot-legs in a past
issue
of PMQ). Virtually any style of carton can be equipped ... including
your
current pizza box. Here's how PCE works. In a customer's home, a pizza
in a
non-legs carton experiences 33 percent greater heat loss than a pizza
in a
legs-equipped carton. Also, without legs, the box bottom absorbs
condensation
that forms on a tabletop, whereas with a legs-equipped box a tabletop
stays
dry. Finally, a package with a soggy, water-soaked bottom panel
projects a
low-quality image.
Square vs.
Non-square
Originally all pizza boxes were
square. Today, most of them still are. However, circa 1988, a curious
thing
happened — the first non-square pizza carton hit the market. It was an
8-sided,
or octagon, box dubbed the “octabox.” It was picked up by Domino's
Pizza and
used by the chain until about 1996, at which time it was dropped for a
D-style
hexagon carton. Which is best — square or non-square? Actually, the
answer
isn't so simple, because square boxes vary from type to type as do
non-square
boxes. However, it's possible to make a few generalizations.
Advantages
of Square Boxes: A
square-shape box has three advantages over a non-square box. First, a
square
shape is what people traditionally associate with a pizza box. Second,
a square
shape provides a maximum of cover area, which affords maximum surface
area for
printing. Third, a square box has four open corner spaces for holding
extra
items like sauce cups, garnishes, and the like.
Drawbacks
of Square Boxes: The main
drawbacks of square-shaped cartons are that (a) the four open corner
spaces
allow pizza-sliding, or slice separation, during delivery and (b) the
box
contains a maximum amount of air space, which tends to promote maximum
heat
loss. However, there are ways of reducing pizza sliding in a square
box, such
as by incorporating anti-slide cover flaps into a carton.
Advantages
of Non-square Boxes: A
non-square box has some advantages over a square box. First, a
non-square box
is “new and different.” It's also a way of clearly differentiating your
carton
from that of the competition. Second, a non-square box accommodates
creative
cover shapes and opens the door to high-impact box structures. Third,
due to
the diagonal panels, a non-square box reduces pizza sliding, or slice
separation. Fourth, a non-square box has a smaller air space, which
tends to
promote heat conservation.
Drawbacks
of Non-square Boxes: The
main drawbacks of non-square cartons are that (a) in certain design
configurations they can project an unconventional image, which might
not
correlate with the desired image of a pizza company, (b) the covers of
non-square boxes tend to have slightly less surface area for printing,
and (c)
non-square boxes have diminished corner space for packing extra items.
However,
with creative design, all three of these drawbacks can be reduced or
eliminated.
Paper
vs. Plastic: Pizzeria,
restaurant, and foodservice packaging comes in two basic materials:
Paper and
plastic. Plastics comprise a host of synthetically made moldable
materials. The
advantage of plastic packaging is that it can be molded into special
shapes and
colors and can be designed to be 100 percent leak-proof. Paper
packaging
comprises two main types: Paperboard (ex. chipboard) and corrugated
board. The
advantage of paper packaging is that it never develops product-sogging
condensation build-up inside the carton, can support stunning graphics
and
Graphics-Structure Integration, and also is usually more
cost-effective.
Corrugated board is far-and-away the most prevalent material used in
pizza
packaging today. So the rest of this discussion pertains to corrugated
pizza
boxes.
Corrugated
board comes in many
forms. The most common is single wall board, also known as double face
board.
It's what's used for most pizza boxes. It consists of two outer sheets
of flat
paper, called facings or liners, glued to a fluted, or corrugated,
inner sheet,
called medium. The paper used for the facing or liner is called
linerboard.
B-flute vs.
E-flute
Corrugated board can be produced in
various thicknesses or heights. This is accomplished by shaping the
inner paper
of the board into any of several flute heights during the production,
or
corrugating, process. The higher the flute, the thicker the corrugated
board.
To designate the various flute heights, or board thickness, the
corrugated
paperboard industry applies letters and has derived designations such
as
A-flute, B-flute, C-flute, E-flute, and so on.
Most
corrugated pizza cartons come
in either B-flute or E-flute board. B-flute board is about 1/8-inch
thick,
E-flute is about 1/16-inch thick, or half as much. Some folks assume
that
B-flute, because it's thicker, comes with heavier paper, but that's not
necessarily so. The flute size has nothing to do with paper thickness,
or
weight. The advantages of B-flute are that (a) it tends to warp less
from pizza
steam than does E-flute and (b) some folks believe that the thicker
board
connotes higher quality. The advantages of E-flute are that (a) it
saves almost
50 percent in box blank storage space over B-flute and (2) it tends to
print up
slightly better.
Some
folks also assume that B-flute,
because it's thicker, retains pizza heat better. However, research by
at least
one box manufacturer refutes this.
Rolf
Wilken, owner of 17
Cost
Reduction
We believe that packaging's greatest
profit-building potential lies in the marketing, or sales-building,
area.
However, many pizza company executives view packaging's profit-boosting
potential in terms of cost reduction. In fact, these two pursuits
aren't always
mutually exclusive.
Two
Basic Cost-reduction Strategies:
The biggest factor in a pizza carton's cost structure is material. In a
corrugated folder-type pizza box, material comprises about 70 percent
percent
of its total cost. In a clamshell-type box, it comprises around 50
percent of
total cost. So, clearly, a large opportunity for cost reduction lies in
reducing material cost. There are two basic strategies for reducing
material
cost: (1) use a lower-cost corrugated board and (2) use less board in
manufacture of the box blank.
Strategy 1: To reduce the cost
of
the board you can do one or a combination of three things:
- Switch to a
fewer number of print
colors — ex. if you're currently having your box printed with two
colors, go to
one color.
- Switch to a
lighter weight, or
thickness, of paper for either of the liners (the outer papers) or for
the
medium (the inner fluted paper) used in making the board. However, be
advised
that this tends to reduce the board's strength, or rigidity.
- Switch from
white (bleached)
paper to kraft (brown) paper on one or both of the liners.
Strategy 2: To reduce the
amount of
board used in manufacture of the box blank, you must switch from your
current
box structure to a new board-saving structure. There are two categories
of
structural changes: (1) minor tweaks to a current structure and (2)
adoption of
a totally new structure. Minor tweaks generally produce a cost savings
in the
range of one percent to three percent. However, they often have the
advantage
of not “disrupting” store operations. For more savings than that, a
totally
different structure, or different box concept, is usually required.
For
clamshell-type cartons that are used for packaging side items such as
breadsticks and the like, it's often possible to effect a cost savings
of 30
percent or more by replacing the clamshell carton with a
comparable-sized
folder style carton.
Bleached
Paper vs. Unbleached
Rolf, with Eureka! Pizza, also
discovered advantages to the paper used in his boxes. “We made a big
deal out
of the E-flute boxes because they use less paper and are
environment-friendly
and the fact that we switched to unbleached paper in the boxes,” Rolf
said. “By
using unbleached paper, we saved $20,000 a year in packaging. The
bleached
paper shows less grease from the pizza, but so far, it hasn’t been an
issue.”
Folding vs.
Non-folding
Regarding paper packaging for pizza,
cartons can be further classified into two types: Those requiring
folding or
set-up, called folder or folding cartons, and those that don't,
typically
called clamshells. The obvious advantages of clamshell cartons are (a)
they
don't require in-store folding time and (b) they consume less storage
space
than do stacks of pre-folded boxes. The advantages of folder cartons
are that
(a) they're substantially less costly than clamshells (as much as 30
percent or
more), (b) they tend to be sturdier or have greater crush-resistance
than
clamshells, and (c) they can be set up on their side on a shelf (such
as above
a cut-table).
Sauce Cup
Separation Issue
Recently health departments have
been requiring that all items handled by human hands be separated from
contact
with any ready-to-eat food product. So it may be that your Health
Department
may require that sauce cups put in the carton with the pizza have a
physical
barrier between the cup and the pizza. If that's the case, you may have
to
place a paper between the cup and the pizza.
In
Conclusion
Packaging has the most exposure of
all marketing assets and yet is probably the most overlooked of all
marketing
tools. Recall the cereal box: You pour the cereal, sit down to eat it
and read
the box. A similar situation exists with the pizza package. This makes
the box
a perfect place to put advertising, co-op promotions, specials, your
restaurant’s history, or your logo in Graphics-Structure Integration.
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This box shows how GSI (Graphics-Structure Integration) can be used to turn an ordinary pizza box into a dramatic 3-dimensional embodiment of a company logo. This single mock-up using a Pizza Hut graphic was made for illustration and has not been manufactured, used, or sold. |
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Using GSI, the rear corners of this box are given an “organic” contour to complement the organic-looking cover graphic. This single mock-up using a Pizza Hut graphic was made for illustration and has not been manufactured, used, or sold. |
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This mockup shows how the shape and cover graphic of a pizza box can be used to pound home a company’s main message. This single mock-up using a Little Caesars graphic was made for illustration and has not been manufactured, used, or sold. |
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Using GSI (Graphics Structure Integration), a pizza box is transformed into the smiling visage of a company mascot. This single mock-up using a Little Caesars graphic was made for illustration and has not been manufactured, used, or sold. |
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A box with enlarged front corners (for holding even more goodies) is combined with a complementary graphic to drive home the point. This single mock-up using a Papa John’s graphic was made for illustration and has not been manufactured, used, or sold. |
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This mockup shows how heat-legs (a.k.a. PCE) can be used to enhance a company’s benefit bundle and point of differentiation. This single mock-up using a Papa John’s graphic was made for illustration and has not been manufactured, used, or sold. |
– PMQ –