Comments on: Now Pizza Hut Launches A Smart Viral Clip?

By: Pizza Hut makes an Official “Twitterer” Position « Dr. Scott’s Cool Marketing and Business Blog

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 07:59:01 +0000

[...] Now Pizza Hut Launches Smart Viral Clip (viralblog.com) [...]

By: Geniale Viral van Pizza Hut! « Schrikkie’s minor

Geniale Viral van Pizza Hut! « Schrikkie’s minor — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:20:55 +0000

[...] viral is door een echt bureau voor viral marketing gemaakt! Namelijk door Mediocre Films. Op ViralBlog kwam ik er een artikel over [...]

By: Daan Jansonius

Daan Jansonius — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:27:46 +0000

Excellent post Matt, could not agree more!

By: Matt Cardwell

Matt Cardwell — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:52:02 +0000

I don’t get this video and frankly, it’s not even particularly entertaining. It comes across as contrived, sophomoric and mean-spirited — especially the “Shrek” remark that the smarmy “pranksters” make to one of the pizzeria owners.

I can’t see how this video could possibly enhance Pizza Hut’s brand image, since they come across as bullies in this clip. Picking on independent, small-business owners by disrespectfully sitting down in THEIR establishments and then ordering-in makes me want to never set foot in a Pizza Hut again.

This might have made a funny Tom Green bit once upon a time, but that would have been for true comedy purposes, and not a corporate sponsored attempt at creating a “viral” video at the expense of small-business owners just trying to make a living. Irony is, their pizza is probably better than the Hut’s.

If their goal was to make Pizza Hut look like the big, bad mega-pizza chain stepping on the little guys, they succeeded. Congratulations. Do they have an ADDY Award for “Best Video That Makes People Never Want to Do Business With You?”

I think this is just another example of how many marketers still don’t “get” how to do this stuff correctly and authentically. And the agency that did this for them should have known better as well.

A better approach would have been to come up with an interesting hook to get REAL Pizza Hut customers to shoot their own videos, instead of paying 25K to a company that has the word “Mediocre” in their name.

I’m sure right now someone at Pizza Hut or their agency is calling this a “success” because it got a bunch of marketing and PR hacks to “buzz” about it. Of course, not all buzz is good: just ask the people who produced “Wal-Marting Across America.”

D for concept, D for execution, C- for effort.

By: Jeff Stern

Jeff Stern — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:41:15 +0000

Had I not read your copy and known this was pizza hut, I might have thought it was Domino’s, because YouTube had an ad from Domino’s along the lower half of the video – interesting how the context can overwhelm the content!

By: Igor

Igor — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:35:50 +0000

@ Daan and Jessica

I agree. It’s college humor and the last screen is lacking branding and a witty call to action: bigged missed opportunity here.

It’s by far not at the level of “whopper freakout” by Burger King!

Let’s reward them for the attempt. They could have chosen an expensive weak TVc as well! Hope they read your feedback, implement this in the next campaign.

Thanks for your feedback. Wisdom of crowds: together you make brands and agencies smarter, and that why we started this blog in the first place

Cheers

Igor

By: Jessica Sanders

Jessica Sanders — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:11:52 +0000

I agree with Daan, but the video seems like it does the job of spreading word of mouth – if in no other way than getting people to try it themselves, which will probably mean more orders for Pizza Hut!

By: Daan Jansonius

Daan Jansonius — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:12:41 +0000

I’m not a big fan. The video comes across as forced and fake, the brand message is unclear and I don’t like the fact they give small pizza places a slap in the face.

Poor effort, if you ask me.