Pizza Hut CMO: Culture-Focused Marketing Has Led to Sales Growth
*By Brittany Terrell*
As it prepares for its first season as the official pizza of the National Football League, Pizza Hut will launch a new series of promotions Thursday, the opening day of the 2018 NFL Draft.
"Our marketing is really focused on making sure that we're in culture," said Zipporah Allen, the pizza chain's chief marketing officer. "We want to be in the conversations that our consumers are in, and we want to have a conversation with consumers."
That conversation begins with the NFL Draft, which will be held in Arlington, Texas, from April 26 to 28. Pizza Hut will offer discounts for football fans and contests, including "Doorbell Dances," where customers can win tickets to NFL games by submitting videos of their best dance moves to celebrate the arrival of a Pizza Hut delivery.
The company has also designated the 78th pick of the draft as the "Pi Pick" because it is the 14th pick of the 3rd round, a reference to the value of the mathematical constant pi (3.14). The player taken with that draft pick will receive an unlimited supply of pizza for a year, and will host a pizza party for the city of the team that selects him.
Pizza Hut and the NFL announced their partnership after the league's deal with Papa John's Pizza was [canceled](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/sports/football/nfl-papa-johns.html) in February. Papa John's founder and former chief executive John Schnatter blamed the league for a drop in pizza sales after players began protesting police brutality by kneeling during the National Anthem. Schnatter ripped the league for poor leadership in an earnings call last fall; the company later apologized if anyone found the comments "divisive."
Allen said in an interview with Cheddar on Thursday that Pizza Hut was trying to set a different tone from the beginning of its partnership.
"Pizza Hut is an inclusive brand," she said. "Pizza is a shareable food that people really connect over."
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/hut-hut-hut-to-pizza-hut).
CES 2024 starts this week in Las Vegas. It's set to feature swaths of the latest advances and gadgets across personal tech, transportation, health care, sustainability and more. Here's a list of the coolest announcements so far.
Astronauts will have to wait until next year before flying to the moon and another few years before landing on it. NASA on Tuesday announced the latest round of delays in its Artemis moon-landing program.
The Biden administration has enacted a new labor rule that aims to prevent the misclassification of workers as independent contractors. The labor department rule going into effect Tuesday replaces a scrapped Trump-era standard that lowered the bar for classifying employees as contractors
The KC-46 was to be the ideal candidate for a fixed-price development program. Instead, it has cost Boeing billions, and made industry wary of such deals.
Dave Long, CEO and Co-Founder of Orangetheory Fitness joins Cheddar to chat trends in the industry for 2024. He updates us on the company's plans to expand and what the state of the economy has meant for business.
One of the world's largest renewable energy developers will be getting hundreds of wind turbines from General Electric spinoff GE Vernova as part of a record equipment order and long-term service deal.
A moon landing attempt by a private US company appears doomed because of a fuel leak on the newly launched spacecraft. Astrobotic Technology managed to orient the lander toward the sun Monday so its solar panel could capture sunlight and charge its onboard battery.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has announced that 100,000 businesses have signed up for a new database that collects ownership information intended to help unmask shell company owners. Yellen says the database will send the message that “the United States is not a haven for dirty money.”
