Austin, Texas-Gatti’s Pizza, an Austin-based pizza company with franchises in 11 states, has announced the winner of a ten thousand dollar grand prize as well as other prizes for finalists and a fan favorite in the company’s just-ended jingle contest. The contest was held to encourage the public to re-make Gatti’s famous 459-2222 jingle via audio or video submissions to a special contest website at www.Gattisjingle.com. The new jingle could potentially replace the current company jingle, which is used in advertising for the company throughout the greater Austin area.
Five finalists were chosen by a panel of judges in the Austin music industry (Marcia Ball, Ruben Ramos, Randy Houston, Mike Blair, Kevin Connor and Ed Cohen). Fans then voted among the five finalists for both a grand champion as well as a “fan favorite.”
The overall grand prize winner is 24-year old Ryan Harkrider for his jingle entry called “Get-A-Gatti’s Pizza.” Harkrider is a Special Education Job Coach at Westlake High School with a degree in religion and music from the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently working on recording his first album, “Days Like This,” with his band, the Ryan Harkrider Band. He says he will use some of the prize money to finish the album. As the grand prize winner, Harkrider wins the $10,000 cash prize, Gatti’s Pizza for a year, a music store gift certificate, and an Apple IPod Nano. Additionally his jingle will be featured in a congratulations TV spot to air on Time Warner Cable.
A second winner was crowned as the “Fan Favorite” based on a vote of fans visiting the jingle website. Gina Chavez was the fan favorite for her jingle “Dinner Time Blues.” She is a full-time musician since she began performing regularly in 2007. She will soon be a missionary/English teacher in San Salvador for nine months. She wins Gatti’s Pizza for a year, an Apple MacBook computer, and an Apple Ipod Nano.
The other three finalists were Joel Calvin, Eric Hanke, and “Dog the Bounty Singer ” (a/k/a Jonny Branch, Carter Arrington and Ross Tyler) They each will receive an Apple Ipod Nano and a Gatti’s Pizza gift certificate for $100. All of the finalist’s jingles are available at the contest website, as well as biographical information and links to their individual websites.
The winners were officially announced Saturday, September 12th, at a private party held for the finalists at the ME Television Studio on South Congress Ave.
During the contest there were more than 70,000 visits to the contest website, and nearly 12,000 registered users who participated by listening to 392 different versions of the Gatti’s jingle and voting for who they wanted to win.
“This contest has been such a tremendous success for Gatti’s Pizza on many levels. Not only did we have huge interest and overwhelming participation rates throughout the community, this experience has helped us reconnect with our Austin roots. From the guy who wakes up every day at 5am to make the dough, to the drivers who slogged through the rains this weekend to deliver pizzas, our 600 plus employees and management team are extremely proud to call Austin our home. We could not be happier with the submissions, our outstanding finalists, and of course, the winning jingle from Ryan.”
