The other night my girlfriend and I went out to dinner with some friends of hers, and the topic of cooking came up and how it seemed we just didn’t have the time to cook as much as we’d like. One of the men sitting at the table mentioned Little Caesar’s and how he and his wife had been taking advantage of their $5 ready-to-carry-out large pepperoni pizza offer. Immediately another couple chimed in with how they’ve been doing the same thing because it’s “so convenient,” and “bad” pizza is pretty rare. In other words, most pizza is plenty good enough even if it’s not great.
If you’re not familiar with the Little Caesar’s offer, it’s more or less a fast food alternative targeting rush hour traffic with a large pepperoni pizza ready to go if you walk into the store, pay, and carry the thing out. Americans love pizza, but the pizza sector has been taking a decent hit of late with the rise of the fast food Mexican sector (Q-Doba, Moe’s, Chipotle, LaBamba, etc.). While we seem to still love pizza, we’re not to keen on waiting 20-30 minutes for the pizza to be delivered or having to go pick the thing up after ordering carry out. Little Caesar’s has changed the rules of the game with this little twist. They obviously picked out the top selling one topping pizza and targeted their marketing & advertising to those people during a time of indecision about dinner. Their target is busy people who neither have time nor want to wait on a meal to be prepared so you have a captive audience for one. The odds that you may buy a pepperoni pizza are pretty good since that’s their top seller. If you don’t want pepperoni only, they’ll make you one to order, but they’ve gotten your attention with the “remarkable” deal on the pepperoni pizza. You’re already there, and that’s half the battle.
I’m not predicting Little Caesar’s will outshine Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, or Domino’s in the pizza wars, BUT they have people talking about them in a positive light which hasn’t happened in quite awhile. Dare I say they’ve created a potential “Purple Cow?”