When consumer research indicated that Pizza Hut still had market share opportunity in Vietnam, especially amongst hungry millennials, the world-famous pizza maker recruited Decision Lab to measure the effectiveness of a summer campaign that aimed to refresh the brand’s top-of-mind awareness and place their product in an ‘entertaining’ new context.
There can be no doubt about the rise in popularity of quick-service food items like pizza in Vietnam. Over the last ten years especially, the shareable treat has made its presence felt in most major centers across the country, steadily becoming part of the diet of a growing number of Vietnam’s new middle class.
The increase in spending on the iconic fast-food has given rise to a bidding war centered on price, product and convenience between an increasing number of local and international players.
As proof of pizza’s success — particularly in a country famous for its own local alternatives — even when Vietnamese diners shifted their out-of-home behaviour, and footfall was put under more pressure by full-service competitors like Pizza 4P’s, continued demand has meant that the home-delivery and takeaway pizza market has remained one worth pursuing in this country.
‘Pizzatainment’
In Pizza Hut’s case, being an early entrant to the international casual dining scene here has had its advantages, helping it to establish trust with a new generation of Vietnamese pizza-lovers. However, this hasn’t insulated the brand from the challenges at hand, meaning Pizza Hut has had to stay active in a marketplace full of choice.
This summer, in response to research which suggested that they could improve their share of ‘key occasion dining’ in Vietnam — especially outside of the weekends and especially amongst millennials — they launched a campaign that introduced several ‘indulgent’ new products and presented the Pizza Hut brand in a way it hadn’t been before in this country.
Because of the risk associated with this, it was important to establish two things; firstly, whether the campaign was achieving cut-through with its target demographic of 16-45 year-olds, and secondly to answer the following fundamental marketing problem:
Would Vietnamese consumers make the link between the new advertisements and the existing Pizza Hut brand?
The approach
Using Decision Lab’s proprietary brand measurement solution, Pizza Hut was able to understand the answers to these questions in real-time.
More than 100 online interviews were conducted with the target demographic during each week of the campaign, the results of which were updated on a live dashboard across categories including brand salience, cut-through and likelihood of purchase.
As Pizza Hut’s Marketing Director Soames Hines is fond of saying himself:
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Soames Hines
Pizza Hut's Marketing Director
This dashboard allowed Pizza Hut’s marketing teams to overlay their advertising spend on the brand metrics, giving an even more accurate indicator of return on advertising spend. To benchmark the Pizza Hut brand, all responses were tracked against the performance of its two main competitors, Domino’s and The Pizza Company.
Outcome
As a result of leveraging Decision Lab’s brand measurement solution, Pizza Hut was able to unlock actionable consumer insights and make agile marketing decisions around media spend, creative execution and product mix. It was also able to measure the impact of its ‘Pizzatainment’ brand platform, its’ buy-one-get-one free retail offer, and see exactly what percentage of its key audience had recalled the campaign unaided.
Rather than wait for quarterly or half-yearly research results, the above approach allowed the brand to get ahead of its competition, build a more accurate picture of their audience response (from which to build future campaigns) and understand the value of being able to respond quickly to the expectations of Vietnamese pizza-lovers
"Working with Decision Lab on this campaign has given us the insights necessary to optimise the content we use to engage with our audience" said Pizza Hut Marketing Director Soames Hines.
“Being able to analyse feedback from our target audience as it occurs on a live dashboard has been an invaluable resource, meaning we can tailor our online campaigns to generate the most return on what we spend and where we spend it.
Soames Hines
Pizza Hut's Marketing Director