Super Sunday - What pizza and fashion/beauty marketing have in common

It’s Super Bowl Sunday and you know what that means right? People will be gathering around watching the big game and more than likely eating pizza. In today’s Fashion and Beauty Marketing 101 post I’m going to share with you what pizza and fashion/beauty marketing have in common.

Pizza is a $30 billion a year industry in the United States. You may be ordering pizza today from Papa John’s, Domino’s Pizza hut while watching the Super Bowl. If you are from Madison Wisconsin you pizza choice would probably be a pizza place called Toppers.

There are approximately 26 Toppers Pizza in the upper Midwest. “It earns more revenue per square foot than stores affiliated with national pizza chains. Toppers outperform the competition by creating an innovative customer experience.”

Their vision is “to build an extraordinary company that brings together families, friends, and fanatics for food and fun. Fun is the key word.” It wasn’t to make great pizza. If that would have been the scenario/vision the company would have had a hard time getting their fan base.

Topper’s focused on a specific market which was the college aged crowd. This is what they did to be seen as cool by the college crowd.

Fresh ingredients – Topper’s makes its dough fresh daily where the national chains like Pizza Hut don’t.They communicate their freshness throughout their marketing.
Provide menu variety – offers items such as the Mac ‘N Cheese pizza and Hangover Helper
Empathize with customer – Most college kids are on a budget so they created individual trial size pizzas for a lower price
Hang out with your customer – Topper’s has Facebook and Twitter profiles as well as a YouTube page
Have Fun – When you get your pizza delivered you get the usual supplies like napkins, plates, etc. but the delivery person also gives you an option of either green army guys or lollipops.They do that to be fun and memorable.It’s who they are.
Hire for culture fit – If you are an introvert you probably won’t fit in but if you are friendly and can make people feel welcome and not as just a transaction they can teach you how to make a pizza

“Where the big guys offer mediocre quality and don’t care about you as a person, we want our customers to know that we offer a superior product in terms of quality and freshness, but also that we want to have a personal relationship with them. People love brands that connect with them personally.”

Despite 2009 being a bad year for restaurants in the United States, Toppers was able to have record revenue for their business. They did this by enhancing and enriching the connection between the brand and its customers.

Think differently about your brand experience. Don’t move products. Enrich lives instead. Think about what makes your customers happy and that in turn can be good for business.

I challenge you today to ask yourself what you are really selling. If people love brands that connect with them personally, don’t just make a great outfit/line. Communicate what your brand stands for and enrich lives. Sell the dream. That’s what the big brands do and that’s why they get top dollar.

Below are some pictures I did that sell the "dream".