Pizza Hut plans to tap the Internet “airwaves” Wednesday with its version of the Home Shopping Network in a broadcast aimed at engaging customers and eventually connecting with them via email.
The Plano, Texas-based division of Yum! Brands Inc. has brought in an improv comedy group to host a three-hour live YouTube-based broadcast, accessed through the microsite PizzaHutLive.com, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday, giving away hundreds of prizes, including Xbox One, pre-release Halo 5: Guardians, selfie sticks and free pizza.
“We want the customer to know the personality of our brand through the video,” Mehreen Shams, Pizza Hut’s senior manager of customer relationship management, told Nation’s Restaurant News on Monday. “We know our customers are there, and we wanted to meet them there in a fun and engaging way.”
To be eligible for the prizes, participants must be enrolled or sign up for the Pizza Hut Lovers email program. “We will be giving a prize almost every minute for the three-hour live stream,” Shams said.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based improv group Four Day Weekend will broadcast the event from the Pizza Hut’s test kitchen at the brand’s headquarters in Plano, said Courtney Moscovic, a public relations manager for the company.
Restaurant concepts are increasingly taking their content to the masses via live engagement on Internet platforms. In July, Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar live-streamed a #TasteTheChange hashtagged all-day event on the newer smartphone based broadcast apps Periscope and Meerkat, as well as the web-based Livestream site.
Shams said Pizza Hut decided to employ YouTube because most of its customers are knowledgeable about the video platform.
Live-streaming platforms are becoming more mainstream than in the past, Moscovic said. “But some people are still wary of the newer platforms like Periscope and Meerkat,” she added.
To prepare for the live event, Shams said Pizza Hut has prepared the comedy troupe to give them some depth on the brand. “We brought them in and had a couple of sessions to talk with them about who we are as a brand so we are on the same page about what the promotion is about,” she said.
Throughout the three-hour broadcast, the comedic hosts will broadcast codes that viewers then can enter them into the sweepstakes, Shams said. Participants can sign up for the Hut Lovers email program through the same page, and the video will continue playing, she said. The broadcast will also showcase new Pizza Hut products such as Twisted Crust Pizza.
The hours and day of the live event were also selected with the help of Pizza Hut’s social listening, Shams said.
“Social media has given us a great view of our customer,” she noted. “What we noticed is that a lot of people start talking about dinner and being hungry right after lunch. Typically, those conversations start after lunch and trail off after 3 p.m. That’s when people really talk about food. And Wednesday is usually a great day [for fans to talk about food] as well. We see a lot more engagement about food and planning for food.”
While the live broadcast is intended to capture new customers and engage existing ones, the Hut Lovers email club membership is where Pizza Hut plans to deepen the relationship, Shams said.
“Customers really want relevant information sent directly to them,” Shams said, adding the Pizza Hut can customize deals to segments of that group.
Like any Shopping Network, Pizza Hut’s Flavor Network will include elements of the brand and products in the test-kitchen studio, Sham added. But any live show can go beyond the choreographed segments, she said.
“Because it is a live stream, we don’t know what to expect,” Shams added. “We’ve tried to make it as choreographed as we can. But, at the end of the day, we don’t know what will happen.”
The microsite will include a module that allows for a live Twitter feed, she said.
“If you are on Twitter, you can actually engage with the comedy group live using the hashtag #PizzaHutLive,” Shams said. “At some point, Four Day Weekend will pull some of that content and engage with the audience live.”
Existing Hut Lovers email club members also will be able to get extra prize entries if they share the microsite broadcast with their social Twitter and Facebook networks as well, Shams said.
The prizes include versions of the most recent Halo 5: Guardians game, a week before its Oct. 27 release.
The Halo partnership happened as Pizza Hut was working on getting trademark-use approval, Shams said. “We reached out to Microsoft because we were giving away Xboxes, and we were looking for approvals on trademarks,” she explained. “The more we got to know Microsoft and work them, the more we saw opportunities to work together and leverage the opportunities to give away Halos.”
As of Sept. 5, Pizza Hut had 13,616 restaurants, with about 60 percent of those in the United States.
Correction: Oct. 20, 2015 An earlier version of this story misstated the name of Pizza Hut's email program. It is called Hut Lovers.
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