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CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY MARKETING STRATEGY OF PIZZA HUT HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF PIZZA HUT CUSTOMER FOCUS COMPETITORS STRATEGY INDUSTRY ANALYSIS SCANNING THE INTERNAL ENVIORNMENT MARKETING STRATEGY PRODUCT STRATEGY PRICING STRATEGY PLACE STRATEGY PROMOTION STRATEGY GLOBAL STRATEGY BIBLOGRAPHY APPENDIX

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pizza Hut, the worlds largest Pizza chain with over 12000 pizza restaurants and delivery outlets worldwide has the vision of becoming the best branded restaurant with the best delivery and franchise network thereby providing the best food and best value to the families. Pizza Hut as a company has always tried to target and satisfy various diverse customer categories in different countries depending upon various factors and situations. Pizza Hut in order to fulfill its marketing objective of maximizing customer satisfaction by providing high quality products, has believed in the following marketing strategy:

Think Global, Act Local

Pizza Hut has tried to target each and every diverse population segment either on the basis of age (kids, teenage, office goers, senior citizens) or on basis of lifestyle (singles or couples) or special interest groups (celebrations, parties, festivals). As a part of the marketing strategy, Pizza Hut follows total market strategy along with international market strategy coupled with early entry strategy.

Marketing Strategy of Pizza Hut

... Our landlady became concerned about complaints she was getting on the clientele of the tavern next to our family's grocery store. She wanted a nice neighborhood business to occupy her building. Having read an article on the growing popularity of pizza in the Saturday Evening Post, she approached Dan and me with the idea of opening a pizza place in her building. Although pizza was relatively unknown in Wichita at the time, we decided that it just might work." Frank recalls. On 19th June, 1958 the first Pizza Hut restaurant was opened by Frank and Dan Carney, 2 students at Wichita State University, in Wichita, Kansas, USA. By September Pizza Huts sales was grossing $700 to $800 a week, by December, over $1,000 a week. At the same time Pizza Hut restaurant number two and three soon followed. Market-Geography Strategy of Franchising was adopted in 1959, when Dick Hassur, Manager of Pizza Hut Unit No. 3 signed the first Franchise Agreement. For a fee, he would have the right to use the Pizza Hut name and 'secret' recipes. He also would receive management assistance from the Carneys. Today Pizza Hut is worlds largest pizza chain in the world with more than 12000 pizza hut restaurants and delivery outlets operating worldwide.

Historical Highlights of Pizza Hut

The first Pizza Hut restaurant in Wichita, Kansas was opened in 1958 by two brothers Frank and Dan Carney. The two brothers borrowed a sum of $600 from their mother to open their new dream venture in the form of Pizza Hut Restaurant. In 1959, the 3rd Pizza Hut unit was set up as a result of Franchise Agreement. Thus their vision and drive developed a Franchise System which later became a worldwide successful marketing model. International Pizza Hut Franchise Holders association (IPHFHA) was organized in 1968 and in the same year, Pizza Hut made its first move towards international markets and set its first Pizza Hut in Canada. In 1969, Pizza Hut Restaurant was opened in Mexico followed by Restaurants in Australia, Japan and England. In 1976, international Pizza Hut restaurants became 100 in number while the total number of Pizza Huts reached 2000. In 1986, Pizza Hut opened its 5000th unit in Dallas, Texas. In 1988, Pizza Hut celebrated its 30th anniversary with more than 6000 units. And at present when worlds largest pizza maker is reaching its 50th anniversary, it has close to 12000 Pizza Hut restaurants and delivery units. Out of which 7500 are in America while more than 4500 are spread all across 80 countries. As far as the Food is concerned, Pizza Hut along with its regular Thin-ncrispy pizza, added sandwiches, salads and beer to its menu in 1970. In 1980, all time favorite Pan Pizza to its menu and till date it is the most

favorite pizza of the entire menu at Pizza Hut. Famous Pizza varieties from Pizza Hut are Pan Pizza, thin-n-crispy pizza, hand tossed style pizza, stuffed crust pizza. In 1977, Pizza Hut merged with PepsiCo. And $10 million new office was constructed in Wichita. Pizza Hut also made its entry into the Home Delivery segment which is the most growth oriented segment in the pizza market. In 1983, Pizza Hut Australia started home delivery of pizzas, followed by Sydney etc. In 2000 In 1997, YUM restaurants was formed making Pizza Hut a part of worlds largest restaurants chain with KFC and TACO BELL spinning from PepsiCo. At this time, Pizza Hut has the largest number of outlets of any Australian Convenience food company with a total of 464 outlets in Australia and New Zealand.

Vision of Pizza Hut

Not just Good.not just great. But THE BEST. To be the best hospitality business anywhere in the world. The best branded restaurant The best delivery business The best franchise network The best food, service assets and value The best for families

Customer Focus
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of production; and the interest of producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the customer- Adam Smith Frank and Dan Carey recognized that the concept of Pizza was quite new to American. Although frozen pizzas and pizza mixes had entered into the market and started penetrating in non-traditional food market. Initially Pizza sampling was done to test the product and consumers preferences about the product. Thus first Pizza Hut was a success. From the very start, Pizza Hut aimed to get pizzas to the masses. Initially, the entire world was a common market for Pizza Hut until it began segmenting and targeting particular market segments by differentiating and developing diverse products for them. Pizza Hut as a company has always tried to target and satisfy various diverse customer categories in different countries depending upon various factors and situations. Pizza Hut in order to fulfill its marketing objective of maximizing customer satisfaction by providing high quality products, has believed in the following marketing strategy:

Think Global, Act Local

In Malaysia for instance, Pizza Hut targeting both urban adults as well as families with pre-teens and teenage children by offering a delicious mix of nutritious Itlaian-Amercian cuisine which includes worlds favorite pan pizza. Pizza Hut Malaysia at the same time offers a cozy, friendly ambience in which to relax and have a great time with family or friends. Pizza Hut Malaysia's success has been due to imaginative and innovative thinking in continuously developing, marketing and promoting new pizza products with unique and distinctive flavor, taste, style and appeal. In order to target the entire family experience, Pizza Hut launched a Hand Tossed Pizza which was pizza huts first step in traditional stuffed crust segment. It offers not-to-thin and not-to-thick crust on which the entire family agrees. To tap the market for young single in-hurry office goers looking for fast lunch, Pizza hut came up with personal pan pizza for one. The Personal Pan Pizza revolutionized lunch and became the perfect solution to satisfy pizza cravings in a hurry. Pizza Hut introduced America to the perfect pizza for on-the-go back in 1983. Today, we can find Personal Pan Pizzas in airports, college cafeterias and even sports arenas. To satisfy the New York pizza lovers, Pizza Hut introduced a The big New Yorker Pizza. This pizza was 30% larger than pizza huts largest pizza. It is New York style pizza at un-New York price introduced in 1999. In some countries, to capture the interest of Echo Boomer generation which the ultimate cheese loving population, Pizza Hut laun ched The Ultimate Cheese to give them the ultimate pizza experience.

As Pizza Hut is the worlds largest Pizza manufacturing company believing in strategy of Think Global, Act Local, somewhere in USA pizza hut introduced variants with extra cheese or large in size, at the same time, when pizza hut to grow in international waters as Asia, it diversified to adapt their cultures and provide their favorite flavors. In order to tap huge spices lovers population in India, Pizza Hut recently has launched The Great Indian Treat which is rich in Indian spices and garlic. In order to tap market segment less than 18 years, pizza hut introduced Stuff! Under 18 only in United Kingdom, to tap the kids segment, various Value combos are introduced comprising of a Pizza, Chicken wedges, Fruit drink and ice cream. Whereas to tap the teenage market, Pizza hut introduced different flavors of pizza along with fruit beer was offered. At the same time, Teenagers were lured by promotional schemes as DUBIT CARD which will allow them to take discounts at various entertainment places including pizza hut. In an attempt to target, the people who are young and romantic at heart, whether it is an 18 year old boy friend or 50 year husband, on the occasion of Valentines Day, Pizza Hut launched a limited edition Sweetheart Pizza in the shape of heart.

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In nutshell, Pizza Hut tried to target each and every diverse population segment either on the scale of age (kids, teenage, office goers, senior citizens) or on basis of lifestyle (singles or couples) or special interest groups (celebrations, parties, festivals).

Competition at Core
A simple word Pizza with a simple meaning a flat yeasted bread topped with a variety of toppings commonly including tomato sauce, cheese, meats and vegetables commands approximately $37 billion worth of world market. Though this figure of $37 billion includes packaged pizzas, frozen pizzas, pizza restaurants, dry pizza/pizza mixes etc. However in the segment of pizza restaurants, there are 4 major international players in addition to various national players operating in every country.

International Competitors of Pizza Hut Papa Johns

Dominos Little Caesars

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Dominos

Competitor Of Pizza Hut

Little Caesars

Papa Johns

Dominos Pizzas
Founded in 1960, Dominos pizza is the recognized world leader in pizza delivery operating a network of company founded and franchise-owned stores in national and international markets. Dominos Pizzas vision illustrates a company of exceptional people on a mission to be the best pizza delivery company in the world.

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With more than 8000 restaurants and delivery units spread across in 50 countries, Dominos holds the 2nd position in international pizza market. Dominos is worlds fastest pizza maker. It makes 14 pizzas in 2 minutes and 35 seconds. In 2004, Super Bowl Sunday was the busiest day of the year when Dominos sold close to 1.2 million pizzas which is approximately 42% more pizzas compared to a normal Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday ranks among the top five days for pizza deliveries annually along with Thanks giving, New Years Day, New Years Eve and Halloween.

Little Caesars
Little Caesars is 4th largest pizza manufacturer in USA. The company claims to be largest carry-out pizza chain in the world. The company is famous for its advertisement campaign of pizza! Pizza! which was later altered to pan! Pan! to promote their pan pizzas.

Little Caesars is famous for selling more pizzas at fewer prices. It has notable differentiating Strategy wherein Little Caesars sells Hot -NReady pizza for $5.00 only which means those customers do not have to call before taking the delivery of their pizza. They can just drop in to a Little Caesar outlet and collect their hot-n-ready pizza instantly.

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Common Marketing strategy followed by 3 international competitors:

Differentiation
Three differentiation drives followed by 3 major companies of worlds pizza industry started in 1970s. Differentiation drives taken up by Pizza Hut is Pan Pizza. Differentiation strategy adopted by Dominos is Guaranteed 30minutes free delivery. Differentiation drive taken up by Little Caesars was Buy-One-GetOne-Free. Although these 3 differentiation drives ended by 1995, but these made dramatic changes in worlds pizza industry. Pizza Hut style pan pizza was seen on numerous menus; every pizza company was delivering and offering some variation of 30-minute delivery; almost every company was advertising some variant of two-for-one or two pizzas at a discount price. Till 1985, all the 3 big players were involved in neutralizing the impact of their competitors strategy. For e.g. Little Caesars introduced Panza Pizza to neutralize pizza hut and Dominos pizza introduced Dominos Doubles to neutralize Little Caesars. Finally while these 3 giants were thrashing it out an upstart emerged: Papa Johns with a new point of difference.

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Papa John
Better ingredients, Better Pizza

As a high school student working at a local pizza pub in Jeffersonville, Indiana, Papa John's founder John Schnatter realized that there was something missing from national pizza chains: A superior-quality traditional pizza delivered to the customer's door.

His dream was to one day open a pizza restaurant that would fill that void.

In 1984, "Papa" John Schnatter knocked out a broom closet located in the back of his father's tavern (Mick's Lounge), sold his prized 1972 Z28 Camaro, purchased $1,600 worth of used restaurant equipment, and began selling his pizzas to the tavern's customers.

The customers loved the pizza so much that John was able to expand by moving into adjoining space, eventually leading to the opening of the first Papa John's restaurant in 1985.

Today, Papa John's boasts nearly 3000 restaurants in 49 states and 20 international markets. Papa John's also owns or franchises 100+ Perfect Pizza restaurants in the United Kingdom.

More importantly, Papa John's remains committed to its heritage of making a superior-quality, traditional pizza.

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Papa Johns also used Differentiation strategy of Porters Competitive Game plans. It positioned its pizza on basis of best ingredients which are used to make its pizza better and rather best for its customers.

Seeking Competitive Advantage

To outperform the competitors and to grow despite them, Pizza Hut must know why competition prevails, why firms attack and how firms respond.

This is done by undertaking Industry Analysis which assesses the attractiveness of the market based on its economic structure through:

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PORTERS FIVE FORCE MODEL

POTENTIAL ENTRANTS

THREAT OF SUPPLIERS BARGAINING POWER

RIVALRY AMONG EXISTING PLAYERS

THREAT OF BUYERS BARGAINING POWER

THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES

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Rivalry among Existing Players

At present, there are 3 major players in US pizza market namely Pizza Hut, Dominos and Little Caesars and the degree of rivalry among them is very high. The reason is number of competitors is large, industry growth is high and the fixed cost involved is also high. Threat of new entrants Secondly, since industry growth is high, it attracts new potential firms to enter into the market. However if the new entrant is experienced then it will be able to compete with the existing players else, the economies of scale enjoyed by the existing players will force the new entrants to exit the market.

As pizza industry in US has reached maturity stage, entry of new entrant will be treated as Laggard Entry which in turn can be categorized into Imitator or Initiator. Threat of substitutes Thirdly, there can be a threat from substitutes which in case of pizza industry can be other types of junk food as burgers, hot dogs, pastries, sandwiches or pizza in some other form of pizza as frozen pizza or pizza mixes.

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Threat of Buyers Bargaining Power

Threat can also come from customer or buyers when there are number of suppliers of buyers concentration is high or large availability of substitute goods. Threat of Suppliers Bargaining Power Threat can also come from suppliers when there is large number of buyers from these suppliers, high concentration of suppliers, high switching costs, and non availability of raw material substitutes.

As the competition among existing players, threat of potential entrants, threat of suppliers bargaining power is high, the pizza industry is highly competitive and due to high growth rate, it is highly attractive too.

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Scanning the Environment: S.W.O.T Analysis

Strengths
Name Recognition First-Mover (pioneer advantage) Competitive pizza hut advantage has of he full and as Advantage

Weakness
High overhead costs due to large number of restaurants High price pizza which leads to loss of customers. Internal conflicts among

largest service delivery

network restaurants services.

franchisees.

Broad selection of products to target different segments. Strong Franchisee network.

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Opportunity
Increase revenue through more and more innovative pizzas. Increase through service. Pizza hut has tremendous in brand loyalty customer

Threats
Main threat Out is of from these

competitors.

threat from Dominos is main concern. The differentiation strategy

good

followed by any pizza chain is sooner or later adopted by all pizza industry players. New and newer methods to lure the customers must be found out. Any competitor offering same quality and diverse flavors might be a real threat to Pizza Hut.

scope of expansion through its new online ordering system. Pizza Hut home delivery

network and entry in to new markets.

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Marketing Strategy
Pizza Hut follows the following strategy: Total market strategy: Pizza Hut started with a single product i.e. Pizza but with different segments emerging and the degree of competition increasing, it diversified into several products to serve different segments. It came up with chicken nuggets, wedges, garlic bread, smiley etc. International marketing strategy: Pizza Hut started with local market strategy in Kansas, USA then moved on to regional markets in and across USA. In 1968, Pizza Hut started its international movement by opening its 1 st restaurant in Canada. And today Pizza Hut is worlds largest pizza chain with its presence in more than 100 countries. Early Entry Strategy: Though Pizza Hut was not the first entrants in the pizza market in USA. But Pizza Hut followed an early entrant strategy. Customers knew what a pizza is but still there was huge potential to tap. In order to become a leader, pizza hut continued to refine their product & develop new product to suit their customers changing tastes. Ultimately Pizza Hut with its superior promotion, manufacturing and distribution activities has turned out to be the winner.

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 Strong Commitment Strategy: Pizza Hut has been operating in the pizza market by realizing all economies of scale in promotion, distribution and manufacturing facilities. If Papa Johns or Little Caesars come out with a new competitive pricing strategy or innovative product, then Pizza Hut quite aggressively fights back by bringing more competitive prices or better innovations in product category. In simple words, Pizza Hut takes all possible measures to defend its leadership position in the market.

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Marketing Strategy: McCarthys 4 Ps of Marketing

Price Strategy

Product Strategy

Marketing Strategy

Place Strategy

Promotion Strategy

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Pizza Hut: An Overview of the Product Strategy

Product Strategies specify a market needs that may be served by different products offerings. Product Positioning Strategy: Pizza Hut has always followed Single brand positioning strategy wherein it has positioned only its pizzas. Although the positioning statement has been different in different countries but it has always hovered around its PIZZAS. For instance, in Canada, its positioning statement is The best tasting pizzas under one roof which reflects a great variety of pizza being served , in China it has positioned on Dine-in restaurants, in Australia, it is made fresh, served hot and on time which reflects that best of ingredients are used and pizza is delivered on time. Similarly, in India, pizza huts positioning has been Good times, Great pizzas.

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 Product-Scope strategy: Pizza Hut follows a multiple product strategy as pi zza hut not only sells pizzas, but also deals in a variety of other products as

Product-Scope Strategy

Pizzas

Appetizers

Salads & Pastas

Soups and Desserts

Although all the product offerings in pizza hut are not as fast moving as its pizza, but they usually complement each other. For instance, a family coming for a dinner usually starts with some soup and garlic breads and then moves on to pizzas along with some diet salads. In this way, pizza hut caters to different people with different needs and tastes and preferences. This helps in increasing sales, profitability, market share and above all Customers Mind Share.

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 Product-Design Strategy:

Pizza Hut follows the strategy of selling Standardized Products with modifications. Pizza Hut mainly sells 4 types of pizzas: Pan Pizza, hand-tossed pizza, stuffed crust pizza and Thin N Crispy pizza. Pizza Hut serves these standard style pizzas everywhere in the world but at the same time, it offers its customers to choose different toppings as extra mushrooms or extra capsicum and onions with extra cheese or chicken toppings like toppings of meat, bacon, fish, ham, beef topping, pork toppings etc. Secondly it offers what is known as Value meal combos wherein it offers a combination of pizzas, appetizers, beverages etc at lower prices. For instance, Pizza hut introduced Meal for 2 which offers a medium pan/freshizza pizza, garlic bread sticks with 2 glasses of pepsi. Similarly pizza hut also offered Meals for 4 where it offered 2 medium pan pizzas, with one plate of garlic bread and one portion of wedges with 4 glasses of Pepsi/Soup.

Pizza Hut by offering standard products seeks economies of scale and by offering modification options enhances customer satisfaction which adds to brand equity of Pizza Hut.

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 Product innovation strategy:

Pizza Hut has been constantly involved in innovating new products. It started as Pizza chain in 1958. On one hand, it offers traditional Italian pizzas while on other hand, it innovated several new varieties as pan pizza, thin n crispy, stuffed crust, the big New Yorker pizza, hand tossed pizza, the edge pizza along with the Sicilian Pizza.

Pizza Hut spends extensively on research and development of its innovative products. At the same time, customers feedback also plays an important role in preparing new pizzas. For example, The Big New Yorker Pizza. Pizza Hut continued to make innovations as it followed International marketing strategy. In India, Pizza Hut launched international style pizza in localized Indian flavors like Tandori pizza range with Punjabi flavors, vegetarian tama-tam, Murgh Mazedar Pizza etc. Similarly, in China along with traditional pizzas, it served Sangria and Escargot.

Along with pizzas, Pizza Hut also innovated beverages and drinks to satisfy the tastes of consumers. For e.g. Pizza Hut in Oman has added a refreshing splash of tropics to their menu with the launch of Monin, a new line of flavored drinks.

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 Value Marketing Strategy:

Pizza Hut as far as value marketing is concerned follows Quality strategy Customer- service strategy Time-based strategy

Pizza Hut promises its customers to give them best quality product by using best quality ingredients. Time and again it re-emphasizes on this fact through its advertisement campaigns. Pizza Hut main motive is to enhance its customers satisfaction by providing them best quality products at affordable prices.

At the same time, pizza hut always tries to deliver on time. Although Pizza Huts competitor Dominos differentiates on basis of timely delivery in 30 minutes, however, Pizza Hut through its innovative technology is also trying to reduce its delivery time to 30 minutes and fight back Dominos.

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Pizza Hut: Overview of the Pricing Strategy

Pizza Hut ideology of Customers behind its pricing strategy:

Willing to pay for relevance Willing to pay for excitement Willing to pay for quality Willing to pay for simplifying life Willing to pay for forward movement But Selective and defiant Pizza Hut is definitely not at all playing a Price Game against its competitors. Pizza Hut follows A High/Low Pricing strategy as far as its new products are concerned where it fixes the price higher then its competitors and then gradually lowers the price below the competitors prices. In simple words, it is applying Price Skimming strategy for its new products. For instance, the price of the Extreme was fixed at $9.99 which was much higher then its competitors. But several sales promotions were used to reduce the price of the pizza below its competitors.

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Since both Pizza Hut and Pepsi are partners, Bundle Pricing is used where 2 litre bottle of Mountain dew was offered free with The Extreme pizza.

The high/low pricing strategy has several advantages for Pizza Hut: Used to create excitement Set high prices initially to send a signal that its products are best in quality and service offered is excellent. Helps in segmenting the market as Pizza Hut can sell the extreme pizza to the customers who wish to pay higher price as well as to the bargain hunters too. Pizza Hut in formulating the complete pricing strategy focuses on Value which it is providing to the customers at a particular price.

As far as the pricing of established products is concerned, Pizza hut believes to give Value for Money to its customers. Thus in order to provide maximum value to the customers and enhance the brand value, it sometimes maintains the same prices while sometimes reduces the prices, while sometimes increase prices also.

For instance, in India, when Pizza Hut launched The Great Indian Treat, it didnt increase price of existing pizzas, but reduced the quantity of products in its Value Meals combos. This is because consumers at pizza hut hardly buy single pizzas, they are more satisfied with value meal combos. Therefore by reducing quantity of meal combos, Pizza Hut

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implicitly increased its price thereby encouraging customers to try new flavors and at the same time, maintaining its market share and sales.

Sometimes in face of competition either from pizza players or from its substitutes, Pizza Hut has also reduced prices by maintaining the same level of customer service and quality.

For instance, when McDonalds reduced its prices by introducing Rs.20 value meal, Pizza hut was forced to reduce its prices and introduced Rs.50 Pan Pizza. Pizza Hut also launched what is named as Pan 4 all at Rs.200 where pizz a hut offered 4 pizzas of different tastes. This scheme provided value for money to the customers. Pizza Hut follows One-Price Strategy i.e. it charges the same price to all its customers under similar conditions and for the same quantities.

This helps in establishing a favorable and fair image among its customers as well as having a stable market.

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Pizza Hut at the same time follows Price Bundling Strategy or Value Pricing wherein it combines the items of its menu and offers at a lesser price then what a customer would have to pay if he bought these items individually. For Example, in India, Pizza Hut offered for Rs.75 a deal of a plate of garlic bread sticks, 1 personal pan pizza, a glass of Pepsi and one scoop of ice cream.

Similarly Pizza Hut offered meal combos serving 2 people or 4 people. These bundling schemes attracted large number of customers who are not only interested in pizzas but in tasting other things as well.

In offering such schemes, although Pizza Hut costs less but at the same time, this increases the customer inflow and sales revenue of PH tremendously. Thus Pizza Huts pricing strategy revolves around providing maximum value to the customer at an affordable price.

Pizza hut never plays the price game as it has positioned its brand on high quality and excellent customer service. And even Pizza hut customers dont mind paying a little more than its competitors because of the service it renders and quality it promises

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Pizza Hut: An Overview of Franchise Model

Franchising involves a contractual arrangement between a franchisor (a manufacturer, a wholesaler, or a service sponsor) and a retail franchisee, which allows the franchisee to conduct a given form of business under an established name and according to a given pattern of business.

Pizza Hut after its incorporation in 1958 opened its first franchise unit in Topeka, Kansas. Followed by a Pizza Hut restaurant built in just 5 days by franchisees in Oklahoma State Fair.

In 1968, Pizza Hut made a global entry by entering in Canada. Then it made a strong foot holding in Australia, Japan, England, Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi. By 1989, Pizza Hut was already serving 54 countries.

In 1996, Pizza Hut entered India with the first dine-in restaurant in Bangalore. While entering in the international arena, Pizza Hut used the Franchising Route as the entry strategy.

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Reasons why Pizza Hut adopted Franchising as the entry strategy: Best method to establish operations without risk of operations in an unfamiliar country. Franchising route helps in learning the buyer behavior, consumer preferences, market realities etc. Franchising helped Pizza Hut in building a brand name and creating efficient distribution system. In certain socialist countries as China, Russia etc, direct foreign investment is not allowed, so pertaining to the local legal framework of these countries, Franchising is an easier route to enter into these countries.

The critical success factor in the success of the Franchising Model: Selecting the right business partner.

Yum Restaurant which is the parent company of Pizza Hut invites applications for franchisees for pizza hut.

Three attributes which Yum Restaurants look for are: Commitment Capital Capability

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Franchisee must have the following to join the Pizza Hut family: Do you capital to grow? Personal net worth of $1million Liquidity of $360 million Endorsed financial plan for future development. Do you have a passion for operations? Quick service restaurants are a hands-on business A passion for customer mania is critical Food service experience is a must Are you committed to building people capability? A commitment to management and team training An infrastructure that supports rapid growth

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Pizza Hut: An overview of Promotion Strategies

Pizza Hut uses a wide assortment of promotion tools to achieve the following: Increase the market share Increase the sales volume To increase repeat purchase To induce the non buyers to buy the product

The Promotion mix which it uses is as follows:

Promotion Mix

Advertising

Personal Selling

Sales Promotion

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Advertising: Maximum used Medium of Pizza Hut Promotion Strategy

Advertising is non personal communication transmitted through mass media as radio, television, print, internet and outdoor media.

The main objective behind every campaign is either to increase sales by encouraging potential purchasers or inducing repeat purchases or prompting immediate purchase by offering special schemes or to create awareness about a new product offering by highlighting a new flavor or announcing price changes or demonstrating the product in use by depicting an experience. For instance, to launch a new flavor in India named The Great Indian Treat, Pizza Hut signed a Javed Jaffrey for its new TV commercial. Similarly to inform the customers about Rs.50 pan pizza, Pizza hut showed Zayed Khan as a young teenager boy friend who has to treat his large number of girl friends with something trendy and affordable.

Pizza Hut also launched certain ad campaigns to counter attack its competitors promotions. For instance, in 2005 Pizza Hut launched Freshizza ad campaign featuring Malika Arora Khan and counter attacked Dominos campaign showing Anupam Kher and Paresh Raval.

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At the same time, Pizza Hut brings about local flavor in its ad campaigns. In different countries, it uses models, situations, positioning clearly related to that particular country.

For instance, in India, Pizza Hut focused on occasions such as marriage and used Indian models that represent and relate to their target audience.

Similarly, in USA, Jessica Simpson sells chicken nuggets and pizzas for Pizza hut.

Internet Advertising
Not only Television advertisement, Pizza Hut along with Pizza innovations, also innovates new ways of promoting its products. Recently Pizza Hut signed a deal with Yahoo internet portal to advertise its products. The Flash-based rich media ad shows a pizza-laden pizza peel (the wooden "paddle" used to lift pizzas in and out of an oven) popping out of the middle of the Yahoo home page. Pepperonis rain down on the pizza, which then zooms across the screen to land in an ad unit on the right-hand side of the page, in Yahoo's Marketplace area. Clicking on the ad's "Click for recipes" icon sparks a Flash slideshow of different version of the pizza -- Ultimate Cheese Lover's, Ultimate Meat Lover's, Ultimate Pepperoni Lover's and Ultimate Veggie Lover's -- and a special promotional price, $8.99 for a medium pie.

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Clicking again on the ad takes users to a special sub-site, PH899.com, where they can get more information about the pizzas, find a local Pizza Hut, and play Pizza Hut-branded games. The PH899.com site also features downloadable coupons, and a contest to win free pizza for a year (which requires that users submit their information to the site). Yahoo also plans to promote Pizza Hut across its network, with ads running on Yahoo Mail, My Yahoo, Yahoo Calendar, and Yahoo Sports. The online campaign was conceived and developed by an integrated team consisting of Yahoo, Pizza Hut, and The Digital Edge, the interactive agency for Pizza Hut. According, to chief marketing officer, Pizza Hut, Pizza eaters are a broad group and internet advertising helps them in reaching and targeting each one of them.

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Print Media (newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, posters)

Although Pizza Hut advertises mainly via television, but print ads also constitutes a major portion of its promotion mix.

In order to encourage increased and immediate purchases or to induce non buyers to make purchases, Pizza Hut prints its coupons.

Similarly, Pizza Hut to launch a new concept or to celebrate a particular theme like Valentines Day or Halloween came up with a print ad.

Pizza Hut also promotes its pizzas via pamphlets or leaflets which are either hand delivered or sent through mails to its potential and regular customers.

(**specimens shown in Appendix)

Radio Advertising
Pizza Hut in order to introduce cheesy bites pizza, with an objective to generate awareness and invite customers to sample the new product, briefed its agency to come up with fun and innovative ad campaign. The agency along with Clear Channel Katz advantage launched The Pizza Hut Free & Cheesy Music hour which delivered one hour of regularly scheduled music programming with minimal commercial breaks. During the

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prime afternoon drive time of 5.00 pm to 6.00 pm, hungry consumers got a chance to taste a free sample of cheesy bites pizza at their local pizza hut.

The DJ banters and encouraged the listeners to visit the local Pizza Hut to grab a free slice of Cheesy Bites Pizza. Listeners were encouraged to stay tuned throughout the hour with a promise of a toll free number to be revealed at the end that they could call to win one of the 10 family trips to Walt Disney. The Pizza Hut Free and Cheesy Music Hour was successful in driving awareness and trial and for building excitement at the local market level.

Outdoor Advertisements
Pizza Hut adopted a variety of innovative types of outdoor advertisement. Balloon Advertising: Pizza Hut indulged in an extremely innovative form of advertising named Balloon Advertisements where in cold air balloons in the shape of Pepsi can, pizza slices and garlic bread are placed either in front of the hut or placed at its roof top. (**specimen shown in appendix). Space Marketing: Pizza hut came up with a very innovative method of advertising when Pizza Hut paid huge sums (approx $1 million) to put a 30 ft large logo on Russian Proton Rocket. Not only had the logo, Pizza Hut also made its pizza available to the astronauts in the space. On such a successful venture, Pizza hut stated that If space

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tourism is going to be a reality, Pizza Hut pizza will make the trip even better." Banner Advertisement:

Styrofirm along with McCann Erickson

came up with really innovative banner advertisements to advertise its new range of Gourmet Pizzas. Poster Advertisement: Pizza Hut came with a tremendously successful Poster advertisement campaign on the occasion of Halloween when Pizza Hut advertised for The Ghoulish Tripple cheese, the spooky cheese combo, and the Halloween cheese supreme.

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Sales Promotion
Sales promotion refers to a variety of short term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a product or service.

Coupons & Rebates Sweepstakes & Games Sales Promotion Point Of Purchase Material

Premiums & Gifts

Discount & Allowances

Sampling

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 Coupons and Rebates: Pizza Hut offers discount coupons in physical form with every purchase we make. However in USA, UK, Canada where online ordering contributes a major percentage to total sales, Pizza Hut offers online coupons for different regions of varying denominations. For e.g. by entering your area zip code, we get a list of coupons of pizza hut offering different pizzas with different toppings. Pizza Hut offers large discount on orders made through these coupons. Premiums & Gifts: Pizza Hut offers Gift vouchers to be presented as a gift to someone special on marriages, birthday, anniversary etc. these gift vouchers are available in denomination of Rs. 500, rs.1000, rs.2000 etc. Pizza Hut offers CDs and DVD along with their pizzas as gifts to act as an additional incentive for customers to make the purchase. For e.g. Unique DVD Promotion: Pizza Hut came up with a promotion campaign where is offered a free DVD with a large size pizza and in a 6 week promotion, Pizza Hut distributed 10 million DVDs.

Pizza Hut collaborated with Sony to launch a promotion campaign named Pizza-Powered PlayStation giveaway which was huge success. During the nest year, Pizza Hut again came up with a promotion where along with stuffed crust pizza, kids will get PlayStation demo disc free. Sweepstakes: Pizza Hut during the launch of Cheesy Bites Pizza introduced nation wide online sweepstakes contest to win an
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autographed pair of shoes by Jessica Simpson. Fans will be able to go online to www.pizzahut.com/cheesybites to enter the sweepstakes. Customers will also have an opportunity to win an autographed pair of Miss Piggy boots. Contests: Pizza Hut on various occasions as Mothers Day, Fathers day, Valentines Day organizes contests to attract footfalls in the restaurants as well as to enhance its brand value. For e.g. on mothers day, Pizza Hut announced an Essay competition on why Pizza Hut should cook for MOM? and the prize was $750 Pizza Hut gift card. These contests gave children a wonderful opportunity to be creative and show their love and affection for their moms. At the same time, Pizza Hut offered an exciting gift for mom as this allowed moms to spend some time away from their boring kitchen work with their family over a pizza. Sampling: Pizza Hut gave free samples of the new pizza which it launches. For e.g. in case of Cheesy Bites Pizza, Pizza Hut offered free slices of it to the customers for sampling and testing it amongst the consumer group. Point of Purchase Material: Pizza Hut restaurants interiors are done in a uniform format for all the restaurants. Pizza Hut also comes out with several innovative POP materials to attract the attention of its customers. For e.g. Spin The Wheel games, danglers and posters. During the launch the The Great Indian Treat the entire interiors were given a pink color and the menu and danglers were all colored pink.
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On the occasion of Valentines Day in Malaysia, Pizza Hut launched a limited edition Heart Shaped Pizza with danglers, greetings cards all over. This limited edition Heart shaped pizza not only created an excitement among the customers, it also increased its brand value. (** specimens of ads shown in appendix).

Personal Selling
Personal Selling refers to face to face interaction with the customer. Entertaining the customers in the restaurant: Crew members at Pizza Hut broke in to a boogie at metros like Delhi and Mumbai and performed Bhangra in Chandigarh and Amristsar. Pizza Hut in Delhi organized a JIG N JEETO contest with super star Faradeen Khan judging the show. The show received tremendous response from the customers. Etiquettes of the crew members: The politeness of their speech and the mannerism which Pizza Hut crew members serve their customers is absolutely outstanding which enhances the brand value of Pizza hut in customers mind.

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Pizza Hut: An Overview of the Global Strategy

Pizza Hut before entering into any new country conducts a comprehensive market survey of that country to learn about the culture that prevails in that country, the state of government and politics, the legal framework (product quality laws, packaging laws) , commercial practices (business structure, patterns of competition).

Strategy Adopted by Pizza Hut for Global marketing programs:

Localized strategy:
Pizza Hut follows the strategy of Think Global, Act Local. For e.g. in India, the 1st Pizza Hut which was launched in Bangalore served complete vegetarian meals.

Similarly, in China, along with serving Pizzas, Pizza Hut also serves Sangria and Escargot.

Similarly, in India, to match the spicy tastes of Indian consumers, Pizza Hut launched Tandoori Treat, The Great Indian Treat.

For the cheese lovers in United States, Pizza Hut launched Cheesy Bites Pizza and Stuffed Crust Pizza.

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International Marketing Coordination:

Pizza Huts international marketing activities though dispersed in different countries are properly coordinated to gain competitive advantage as All marketing activities as market research, advertisements, and restaurant interiors are done using a similar method. Marketing know-how and skills are transferred from one country to another. For e.g. the franchising model is used successfully in all the countries by Pizza Hut.

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Recommendations
High Quality Personnel: In order to maintain the no.1 position in Pizza market, Pizza Hut must obtain total cooperation of its employees thereby increasing productivity, beating competition and enhancing customer satisfaction. For this, proper training program with high incentive schemes must be established. Pay more attention to untapped segment of Senior Citizens : Pizza Hut must innovate and launch some product for Senior Citizens. It could establish Pizza Hut senior club which will organize activities for oldies. Maintain the product quality by continuous innovations thereby giving surprises to the customer off and on. Innovations can be based on consumers reviews and feedbacks as to what changes are they looking for in their pizzas. Location, location and location: the most critical success factor for any hospitality business is Location. Pizza Hut does not aim to be premium brand with selective distribution, instead Pizza Hut is brand which must be available anywhere and every where people thinks of PIZZA. Thus Pizza Hut must increase it coverage.

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 Emphasis on development of Home Delivery Network: Although in developing countries like India, Pizza Hut has opened up a call center to fasten the speed of home delivery. But Pizza Hut must think of more innovative ways to reduce the cost and increase the speed. More and More innovative promotions: In developing nations as India and China, where the pizza market is still in growth stage, Pizza Hut must do innovative promotions as done in USA, UK and England which will increase its brand awareness and brand equity.

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Bibliography
www.Pizzahut.com Yum France Investor Day Report, 2006 www.papajohns.com www.dominos.com
www.pizzatoday.com

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APPENDIX
Figure 1: Specimen of Pizza Hut Coupons printed in magazine and news paper.

Figure 2: Balloon Advertisement for Pizza Hut

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Figure 3: Specimen showing Pizza Huts Space Advertisement

Figure 4: Specimen of poster ad Pizza Hut launched for Halloween

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Figure 5: Pizza Huts Valentine Promotion campaign

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