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Shakespeare’s Pizza has used many saucy lines and pizza-irrelevant marketing ideas in and out of their restaurant to help draw people’s attention and to keep them talking about their restaurant. As for creating a smart concept, Shakespeare’s flies high beyond most other places with ideas that have shown proven results in creating positive buzz about their pizzeria. Kurt Mirtsching, manager of Shakespeare’s Pizza in Columbia, Missouri, said he got started in the pizza business with Shakespeare’s in 1978 because he got tired of washing dishes in the dorm cafeteria at the University of 
Missouri-Columbia. “I had a ’65 Pontiac and a 250 Kawasaki and I figured I could deliver the stink out of pizzas with those two,” Kurt said. Shakespeare’s takes a different approach to marketing and advertising than the typical pizzeria. Through pranks, funny art, and quirky slogans, they have built themselves into an unstoppable machine.
Concept on Advertising
“We never really sat down and thought, ‘Let’s come up with a brand and a business plan with a marketing viewpoint,’” Kurt said. “We just did it. It sort of grew out of who we already were. The genesis of it is lost to decades gone by, and now we sit and look at what we did, not knowing how or why we did it, and think, ‘wow, that was pretty smart,’” he said. “Almost everybody 
in Columbia knows who we are and what we’re about, so if we were to have a print ad, or a radio ad and we were to describe our pizza: ‘We’ve got the freshest pepperonis, fresh veggies cut daily, fresh dough made everyday, our staff is really polite…blah, blah, blah…’ that goes in one ear and out the other. So, we try to do stuff that is a little off-the-wall—something fresh that will catch people’s ears and make them think a little,” Kurt said.
Shakespeare’s uses radio and newspaper advertising, but according to Kurt, a local publication in Columbia called the Ad Sheet, is the main place Shakespeare’s advertises outside the restaurant. “It’s just a coupon booklet filled with different ads that’s handed out for free on the street corners and grocery stores,” Kurt said, “but in those ads, we don’t talk about pizza stuff. We try to talk about other stuff.” He gave me a few examples of some past Ad Sheet ads, which had nothing to do with pizza: “They’re 18 or 22 or so, their eyes are bright, their hair is shiny, their lungs are pink…then we hire them and take care of all that.” Or: “Confused? Flustered? Lost track of what time it is? Call us, we have a clock.” And at the end, Shakespeare’s always puts a discount—usually for a dollar off one large pizza. “People pick the Ad Sheet up just because they know we’re going to be in there,” Kurt said. “The people at the Ad Sheet know the only reason anybody picks one up is to see what we have to say for that week, so they give us a great deal and our ad is always within the first page or two.” Kurt said Shakespeare’s spends about 2.5 to 3.5 percent on advertising—or about $7,715 per month, comprised of several radio sponsorships, the Ad Sheet, newspaper, and sponsorships for special community events.
Community Outreach
Shakespeare’s sponsors public and school events, which help create positive PR throughout the city for their two restaurants, both in Columbia, Missouri. “We support events in the area from the track club and the bicycle club to the softball teams and big brothers, big sisters,” Kurt said. He said one of their biggest events is the Max Trax Duathlon, which is held in April. The Missouri Lions club and the local bike and track club host the event, and we sponsor it,” he said. “The participants run three miles, then cycle 18, then run another three miles to the finish line. It’s a great charity because the money raised at the event goes to a local group that helps children with eye problems—blind prevention, contacts, surgery, etc.,” Kurt said. “We’re always real quick to do a big discount on food if the schools want to do some kind of fundraiser or event. We basically have a soft spot for kid issues, so we like to get involved in a lot of low-key kind of stuff.”
Kurt also explained another event Shakespeare’s gladly gets chosen to sponsor. “Every year, the mayor of our town places a friendly wager with the mayor of another college town to see who has the best athletic team. Usually it’s baseball or football,” Kurt said. The wager is based on whichever town’s team wins—“I’ll send you a free meal from Shakespeare’s if you win, and if I win, you send me food from your best restaurant,” Kurt said of the wager. “We have a frozen pizza service where we can pack the pies in dry ice and ship them wherever, so, if our team loses, we pack the food up and send it to the other town. We’ll end up getting a nice write-up in the newspaper. It’s free publicity for us, and it looks good within our community because we were chosen to represent the town,” Kurt said. “It’s not so much that I want to get business from that other town, but what it does for our perceived value of our products here amongst the people that do live here. If it is known that this occurred, people think, ‘wow, that pizza must be good. Look what they did with it.’”
Price Point vs. Relational Customers
In the pizza world, there are two kinds of customers: price point and relational. The price point customers are the ones that look in the paper and see who has the cheapest pizza—Papa John’s or Domino’s—“And as soon as they’re not the cheapest anymore,” Kurt said, “they’re not going to buy.” Kurt said Shakespeare’s doesn’t even try to get the price point customers. “The relational customers know what they want and aren’t worried so much about price—and Shakespeare’s it is,” Kurt said. He said the relational customers interested in things other than just the price. “They want to know the guy behind the counter. They want to know what the experience is going to be like. They want to come in and see the cool decorations we have in the restaurant. They want to come here because they like the feel of the restaurant, and coupons don’t affect these guys much at all,” Kurt said.
What Shakes Shakespeare’s
Shakespeare’s sells between 800 and 1,000 pizzas on a Friday night between the two stores, Kurt said. “We do about 60 percent pizza, 30 percent beer, and the rest is in salads and subs,” he said. “Because people want to come into the restaurant to eat, only 7 percent of our business is delivery.” Many different elements of the restaurant draw people in and keep them coming, Kurt said. One of the main attractions at Shakespeare’s is the men’s room. “People were always asking us where the restrooms were, so I went out and bought every kind of restroom sign I could find. I got some from antique stores and hardware stores—so now there’s like 42 signs saying ‘this is the restroom,’” Kurt said. Shakespeare’s didn’t stop there though. “Once you get inside the restroom, and in the stall, there is one of every kind of lock, latch, bolt, hook, and doorknob they had at the hardware store—and they’re all functional. You close the door behind you, and there’s 16 different locks. It’s just funny,” he said.
But how does that help? “Well, they come here on Friday night, and they have a nice restaurant experience…the pizza was good, the service was great, nice price, it didn’t take too long…when they go to work on Monday morning, what are they going to talk about? They’re going to say, ‘You know, I went to this restaurant, and I went to the bathroom, and they had 16 damn locks in the stall! And every one of them worked!’ People ask why it’s like that, and the staff is trained to answer them as if it’s a normal thing to have that many locks, saying, ‘Some people are a little nervous,’” Kurt said.
But it doesn’t even stop there! “If you’re standing at the Urinal in the boys’ room, and you happen to glance under the sink to the right, you’ll notice the pipes. I hired a plumber to come in and install every type of U-joint and elbow joint, and T’s and whatnot. If you see it, it looks like the plumber was on drugs! It’s totally functional—and people think it’s hilarious,” Kurt said. He said it cost him an extra hour of the plumber’s time, but for years after that, people talk about it. Kurt said these types of pranks keep people coming back time after time, just to see what other crazy things they have.
“Behind the counter there’s a refrigerated display case where we keep the beers,” Kurt said. Shakespeares carries about 30 different beers, and beer sales are about 30 percent of their revenue. “We also buy WD-40 by the case from Sam’s. So in the beer case there’s Heineken, Shiner Bock, Amstel Light, WD-40, Corona…and this is something that gets people’s attention immediately,” he said. “And our staff is trained to act like it’s the most normal thing in the world, and we actually sell a couple cans of WD-40 a week.”
Conclusion
Kurt says, “Put the best stuff in, and the best comes out.” And, according to Kurt, the only way to create and upkeep a pizzeria with a positive image is to, “Buy a cot. You can’t just buy a bunch of ovens and tables and chairs, and walk in and hire some kid to run the place, and expect to make money,” Kurt said. “When you do that, things slip. It’s all about control—the independent operator needs to be there to see to it that everything’s happening right,” he said. “And if you’re going to do that, you have to commit yourself to your restaurant.” To find out more about Shakespeare’s Pizza, check out their website at www.shakespeares.com.