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Canon Blackwell

Morgan Borkowski

Maddie Brambley

Gia Haygood

Laiken Howard

Jillian Hutwagner

Danielle Smith

Pizza Hut Toppings Analysis

History of the pizza restaurant industry

The pizza restaurant industry has been around for decades, and although

America overall seems to be leaning towards adopting healthier habits, pizza

restaurants are still thriving. In the United States in 2014, pizza sales held strong,

coming in with total sales at about $38.5 billion, according to a recent Pizza

Magazine Quarterly report. A vast majority of the pizza industry market is

controlled by the four leading pizza chain companies, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Little

Caesar’s and Papa John’s. Of the overall market share, Pizza Hut is the largest,

controlling 14.79 percent of total sales. Dominos is the second largest with 9.86

percent. Little Caesar’s is third, controlling 7.85 percent, followed by Papa John’s,

holding 6.45 percent. These percentages show a 3.08 percent increase in US pizza

sales since 2013 (Hynum, Rick). There are a total of 73,097 pizza stores in the U.S.

alone. The percentage of pizza stores for each company directly correlates with

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each brand’s position in the market share. In the United States, Pizza Hut holds

8.65 percent of pizza restaurants. Dominos has the second highest number of

stores, with 6.82 percent. Little Caesar’s holds 5.32 percent and Papa John’s is the

fourth highest at 4.38 percent.

History of Pizza Hut

It should come as no surprise that Pizza Hut is the leading brand in the

market. Pizza Hut was the first in the industry. Since its inception, Pizza Hut has

remained relevant with its ability to continually innovate and to meet the needs and

expectations of current consumers. Pizza Hut began in 1958 when two brothers

from Wichita, Kansas approached their mother with a dream of opening a pizzeria.

After she lent them $600 to cover startup costs, Frank and Dan Carney opened the

small pizzeria restaurant at 503 South Bluff Road in downtown Wichita. The pizzeria

was just a small hut, hence the name “Pizza Hut.” To generate public interest in the

new business venture, the Carney brothers, along with their partner and bartender,

John Bender, gave away free pizza to those who stopped by to try out the new

“Pizza Hut.”

After only one year in business, Pizza Hut franchised and a second location

was opened by Dick Hassur in Topeka, Kansas. In 1973, Pizza Hut expanded and

became an international franchise, opening its first international restaurant in

Islington, London. Almost sixty years later, Pizza Hut now has approximately 12,000

restaurants in more than 85 countries worldwide. However, more than half of all

Pizza Hut restaurants are located in the United States alone.

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Throughout the years, Pizza Hut has consistently evolved to create new and

delicious ways to appeal to consumers. In 1980, the first deep pan “Pantastic” pizza

was introduced, and was followed by the personal-sized pan pizza in 1983. The

traditional hand-tossed pizza was introduced in 1988, and famous stuffed crust

pizza was added to the menu in 1995. In 2000, thin crust pizza was added to the

menu, giving consumers a healthier option. Then, in 2012, gluten free pizzas were

introduced in an effort to meet the demands of inclining health trends. Pizza Hut

continues to evolve and adapt to changing consumer tastes and trends.

Late in 2014, Pizza Hut expanded its menu and introduced an extensive

collection of new pizza products in an attempt to stay relevant in the lives of

consumers and to compete with other leading pizza brands. The new menu

additions include 10 new crust flavors, five new ingredients, four new drizzles,

additional sauces and a brand new dough type called “Skinny Slice.” Pizza Hut now

offers 27 pizza recipes in three different categories: classics, such as Supreme,

Meat Lovers, Veggie Lovers, Pepperoni and Cheese; a “Skinny Pizza” collection,

featuring pizzas that are 250 calories or fewer per slice, including new, unique

creations, such as the “Jack J Pizza” with salami; and a “create-your-own” category.

Pizza Hut has also expanded the menu to offer a wide variety of sides and extras,

including two pasta dishes, Tuscani Chicken Alfredo and Tuscani Meaty Marinara,

eight different types of breadsticks, waffle fries and cheese-filled potatoes. Pizza

Hut also now offers individual, family and party-sized wing meals in nine different

flavors including lemon pepper, spicy BBQ and classic buffalo mild. Several new

desserts, like cinnamon sticks and a chocolate chip cookie pie, have also been

introduced.

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Statement of the problem

All of the top pizza companies are competing with one another to meet

consumer demands. Each company has a distinct method for reaching their target

audience. Pizza Hut has attempted to meet the demands of consumers by giving

them an extensive variety of topping and taste options. This method is based on

the concept that consumers desire choice and variety above everything else. In the

2015 Pizza Power Report, Rick Hynum stated that “According to Technomic, more

customers now opt for nontraditional pizza ingredients, such as mushroom sauce,

provolone, steak and pineapple. Forty-three percent say they like their preferred

pizza restaurant because it uses high-quality, fresh ingredients, and 64 percent say

they want more pizzerias to offer premium ingredients” (Hynum, Rick). Pizza Hut

seems to have missed the consumer desire for quality ingredients and focused

primarily on offering an overwhelmingly wide variety of topping and flavor choices.

However, the problem with this method of meeting consumer demands is that there

is a wide variety of topping options, but there is little actual demand for such

unique toppings. This can lead not only to the waste of these toppings, but also to

the waste of the financial resources needed to supply these topping options to

customers. Pizza Hut needs to conduct further research to figure out what toppings

are the most and least popular in order to best meet consumer demands. By

analyzing the preferences of consumers, Pizza Hut will be able to get a more

consolidated list of toppings that consumers enjoy most. Pizza Hut will then be able

to discard topping options that are unpopular and are most frequently being

wasted.

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How people currently see the Pizza Hut brand

In order to find out how people currently view the Pizza Hut brand, surveys

were conducted in order to assess the overall perspectives and opinions of a sample

group of potential consumers within the desired target audience. The projective

techniques used to conduct this primary research were word and picture association

surveys. Thirty-five participants were asked to draw pictures of what animals they

associated with the Pizza Hut brand, and 31 participants were asked to write down

words that they associated with Pizza Hut, the Pizza Hut atmosphere and

environment, and how they viewed Pizza Hut consumers as a whole. Of the

participants surveyed, 27 were men and 39 were women. The majority of survey

participants were between the ages of 18 and 24, with only a few outliers. The data

was collected at several different locations, including the campus of the University

of South Carolina, a USC sorority house, a local business and a church. The

collection of data at different locations allowed for a wide range of responses and

results to analyze.

When analyzing the data, responses were divided into corresponding

categories. Word association survey responses were separated into positive or

negative categories, and picture association survey responses were separated into

domesticated pets, farm animals, aggressive wild animals and passive wild animals.

According to secondary research, Pizza Hut is the leading brand in the

market. However, the analysis of the survey responses indicated that participants

had the most mixed feelings about Pizza Hut in comparison to other pizza brands.

This suggests that opinions about the Pizza Hut brand vary widely based on an

individual person’s specific tastes and preferences.

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The survey participants who were asked to use word associations to describe

the Pizza Hut brand gave a wide variety of responses, both positive and negative.

For example, a number of participants associated Pizza Hut with positive, comfort

words like “home,” “family” and “nostalgia.” Conversely, many other participants

associated Pizza Hut with negative words like “gross,” “greasy,” and “dirty.” When

asked what words they would associate with the atmosphere of Pizza Hut

restaurants, some participants wrote phrases like “sit-down environment” and

“family-friendly atmosphere.” When associating words with their opinion of typical

Pizza Hut consumers, many participants expressed that they think that people who

eat this brand are “smart,” or “looking for a full-service experience.” However,

several other participants stated that they believe people who eat this brand are

“stupid” or “confused.” Also, participants generally expressed that eating Pizza Hut

either made them feel “sick” or “happy.”

Similarly, the survey participants who were asked to relate the Pizza Hut

brand to an animal also expressed a wide variety of opinions. In comparison to the

other two brands, the responses for Pizza Hut were the most varied. Of the 35

survey participants who drew pictures, 12 depicted the Pizza Hut brand as a passive

wild animal, nine drew an aggressive wild animal, nine drew some kind of

domesticated pet, and two drew a farm animal.

Overall, the survey results showed that participants have the most mixed

opinions of the Pizza Hut brand, with responses widely varying.

Profile of current consumers

The information collected from the MRI+ database provided the valuable

insight necessary to create a profile of the demographics and psychographics of

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current consumers. Through the analysis of the index numbers associated with

individual categories in the MRI+ spreadsheet, the data demonstrate how likely a

consumer in a specific category was to order pizza from Pizza Hut in the last six

months. The higher the index number, the more likely a consumer falling into that

category was to order pizza. The demographic categories consisted of gender, level

of education, age range, occupation, annual household income, geographical

region, marital status, home value, and race. Psychographics were broken down

based on the level of consumer exposure to media through various radio stations,

TV channels, websites and magazines. According to the MRI+ results, the Pizza Hut

consumer profile consists of a wide range of both demographic and psychographic

categories. The demographic categories with the highest index numbers were:

men; have attended college; ages between 25-34; household income of $60,000-

$74,999; Southern region; engaged; with children under 12 months; less than one

year at present address; home value under $50,000; Black/African American race;

and occupations in natural resource, construction and maintenance.

In a survey of 2,000 internet users aged 18 and older, “62 percent of females

and 70 percent of males said they have eaten at, picked up food from, or had food

delivered from a pizza food industry spot in the past month” (Fajardo, Katrina).

These percentages directly correlate with the findings in the MRI+ consumer data.

According to foodservice analyst Katrina Fajardo, “Pizza topping varieties and

crust options is a top desire among consumers with household incomes under

$50K; pizzas could be used as an affordable way to try new flavors and

ingredients.” However, according to the projective word and picture association

survey results, it may not be a profitable strategy for Pizza Hut to focus on

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providing such an extensive variety of pizza toppings, crust and drizzle flavor

options.

Presentation of survey responses

The survey results presented a large discrepancy between the male and

female demographics, with 73 percent of the respondents being female and only 27

percent being male. Forty percent of participants fell within the 18-25 year old age

range. Thirty-five percent were full time students and 49 percent said they were

employed full time. Sixty-three percent earned an annual income of under $20

thousand. Every participant surveyed said they had eaten pizza in the last 30 days.

39%

37%

24%

Pizza Hut Pappa John's Domino's

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Each participant was asked which of three major chain pizza restaurants they

were the most likely to order from. Of the participants surveyed, 64 percent said

that they make their pizza buying decisions based on the quality of products offered

by each brand. Domino’s was the most frequent response for first choice, with 39

percent of participant votes. Papa John’s was only slightly less than Domino’s, with

37 percent. Pizza Hut had the lowest value of participant votes, with only 24

percent.

Pepperoni

Sausage

Ground Beef

Bacon

Ham

Chicken

0 2.25 4.5 6.75 9

Pizza Topping

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Many of the participants believed pepperoni to be the most popular toping,

with bacon and other meats in second place. However, the percentage of

participants that selected pepperoni was only slightly higher than the percentage of

participants that selected specialty pizzas, such as meat lovers, veggie supreme

and buffalo chicken.

Peperoni

sausage

veggie

greek

hawaiian

meat lovers

supreme

BBQ Chicken

Pesto Chicken

Buffalo Chicken

0 2 4 6 8

Pizza

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Suggestions for solving the problem

After conducting both secondary and primary research, the data indicated

that consumers generally tend to prefer either basic pizza topping options, such as

standard cheese and pepperoni, or traditional specialty pizzas, such as meat lovers,

veggie supreme or even Hawaiian. Pizza Hut has recently focused specifically on

expanding toppings and flavors to offer customers a wider variety of new and

unique options. Although practical in theory, according to the results of the data

collected, this new strategy may not be the best option for Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut’s increased variety of toppings has provided consumers the

opportunity to try several new and unique flavor options. Along with all of the

traditional pizza toppings, Pizza Hut customers can now choose unique toppings

such as fresh spinach, Peruvian cherry peppers, jalapeno peppers, Honey Sriracha

sauce and tangy BBQ sauce. However, according to survey responses, Pizza Hut’s

initiative to experiment with a variety of unique topping and flavor options may not

be beneficial for the company overall.

The distributed survey consisted of a variety of questions with a specific

emphasis on consumer preferences in regards to pizza toppings. Survey

participants were asked to express how likely they were to order a certain type of

specialty pizza using a Likert scale, with possible answers ranging from one to 10.

By using this type of scale, researchers were able to ascribe a quantitative value to

qualitative data.

Of the random sample of consumers surveyed, the classic pepperoni pizza

received the highest overall rating, with an average value of 7.16 out of 10. Meat

lover’s pizza was the second highest overall rating, receiving an average value of

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6.3 out of 10. This data supports the idea that pizza consumers generally tend to

prefer traditional pizza toppings, even when unique topping choices are offered.

The data collected suggests that, rather than expanding topping choices to

offer new and unique options, Pizza Hut should instead improve the overall

freshness and quality of traditional toppings in order to better meet the needs of

their consumers. The research results showed that 64 percent of pizza consumers

surveyed make their pizza buying decisions based predominately on the quality of

products offered by the brand. This data suggests that Pizza Hut should refocus on

improving the quality and freshness of original existing ingredients. Generally

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speaking, consumers only rarely venture outside their perspective comfort zones.

Therefore, Pizza Hut customers are unlikely to be willing to try the more exotic

topping choices.

A practical idea for solving this problem begins with starting a two-way

dialogue with consumers through traditional advertising mediums as well as social

media to assess the profitability of the current Pizza Hut campaign. Pizza Hut

should reassess their new and unique topping options. New toppings should be

voted on individually by current consumers based on their tastes and preferences.

The Pizza Hut new topping campaign is somewhat excessive, and consumers may

feel overwhelmed with the number of different taste and topping combinations

currently being offered. Pizza Hut should focus less on offering a variety of toppings

and more on offering the freshest and highest quality toppings and ingredients

available. By raising the standards of quality and freshness with which Pizza Hut

makes its products, consumers are more likely to be intrigued and attracted to the

brand’s renewed concentration on offering the freshest ingredients. Through

improvement of the quality of products, the brand also has a unique opportunity to

update and improve their stores’ dine-in atmosphere as well as making their

methods for taking and receiving orders more efficient. Making these all-around

changes and improvements will suggest to consumers that Pizza Hut is committed

to giving customers the best quality experience possible. Pizza Hut should

continuously conduct further research and product testing through customer

surveys and focus groups to ensure the best quality food, service and atmosphere.

Pizza Hut should reevaluate the extensive toppings list and more heavily emphasize

new standards of topping quality and freshness.

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How people should be targeted

In upcoming campaigns for Pizza Hut, there are several categories in the

target audience that should be specifically targeted with certain types of media.

MRI+ provided insight into the most efficient ways to reach certain groups within

the target audience. The chart above, provided by MRI+, shows the top 18 media

outlets to receive the highest level of audience reach. Some of the highest index

numbers are associated with magazines that cater mostly to men, such as WWE

Magazine, North American Fisherman and Hunter Magazines and Four Wheeler

Magazine. These findings are congruent with the previous MRI+ data that indicated

that some of the highest consumer demographic index numbers were associated

with men between the ages 25 and 54 living in the southern region of the United

States. Another category of specified target advertising indicated that high index

numbers also are associated with media that targets children and teenagers, such

as MTV.com, Disney.com, and cable TV channels like Disney XD, Fuse, and the

TeenNick. The sources with the highest index numbers that should be specifically

focused on in the future are WWE Magazine, which showed an index of 170, and

WWE.com which showed an index of 166.

In order to target consumers and spread the word that Pizza Hut’s topping

problem has been solved, the most viable option is to use magazines and television

advertising, as well as advertising through social media outlets, like Facebook,

Twitter and Instagram.

A special event to generate publicity and expose the public to the new and

improved quality of toppings that Pizza Hut will now offer would be a valuable start

to get the new toppings campaign off the ground. To promote the new “Quality over

Quantity” toppings campaign, Pizza Hut could host the “world’s freshest food fight.”

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The event could be held in multiple locations, such as college campuses, across the

country, and could be videotaped and streamed through social media outlets. This

would be a great opportunity for Pizza Hut to connect with its consumers and

generate conversation about their new, fresh ingredients.

Pizza Hut could also use new and improved advertisements in various target-

specific magazines. Full-paged ads on thicker paper with more vibrant colors could

attract more audience attention. Pizza Hut could also incorporate “Scratch and

Sniff” pictures that smell like various toppings, and include enticing descriptions of

their newer, fresher quality ingredients.

Another way to target consumers would be through 30-second advertising

spots in target-specific markets on cable television and on the internet. The most

efficient way to target Pizza Hut consumers specifically is to continue to use the

media outlets with the highest index numbers indicated in MRI+ research.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Pizza Hut should refocus its primary objective around offering

fresh, quality ingredients rather than offering such an extensive variety of topping

options. The data collected suggests that, rather than expanding topping choices to

offer new and unique options, Pizza Hut should instead improve the overall

freshness and quality of traditional toppings in order to better meet the needs of

their consumers.

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Works Cited

Fajardo, Katrina. "Pizza Restraunts - US - November 2014." Mintel. N.p., Nov.

2014. Web. 1 Feb. 2015. <http://

academic.mintel.com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/display/679820/>

Hynum, Rick. "The 2015 Pizza Power Report." PMQ. PMQ, Dec. 2014. Web. 23

Apr. 2015.

"Our History." Our History. Pizza Hut Restaurants UK, 2013. Web. 20 Apr.

2015.