Pizza Hut creates a perfume, seriously!

What began as a marketing joke on Facebook, has now become an international public relations attention grabber, with even Conan O'Brien picking up the story.

It started with a simple set of questions Pizza Hut Canada posted on its Facebook page: “Do you love the smell of a box of Pizza Hut pizza being opened?  We thought so. If that smell was a perfume, what would it be called?”

Following the positive response from it's facebook fans, marketers at Pizza Hut Canada decided to actually launch a limited time only Pizza Hut Perfume, a new fragrance inspired by the smell of a box of pizza being opened. The pizza chain then offered the roughly 100 bottles it produced to many of the facebook fans who initially had responded to the original post.  This of course has generated thousands of additional media impression across North America.

Following the success of the stunt, Pizza Hut Canada's Marketing and product development director, Beverley D'Cruz, explained "for now, we've only produced 110 bottles of Eau de Pizza Hut, but who knows what the future has in store," she said. "The good news is people can enjoy the great smell of fresh Pizza Hut pizza any day of the week by ordering one of our signature crust pizzas."

Well some times grassroots buzz marketing really takes off...and generates a disproportionate amount of consumer impressions for a fraction of the cost of traditional media.  Even if it was a joke, its go consumers thinking and talking of Pizza Hut . . . and I honestly cannot remember the last time that happened.  While a comical execution, the initial post that helped trigger peoples positive associations with the scent of their pizza highlights how important stimulating all of the 5 senses are in delivering both a winning customer experience and great marketing.

Alright, for everybody out there still rolling their eyes about the thought of a Pizza Hut perfume, the amazing thing is this wasn't even the first time a major restaurant chain ran a scent based promotion to drum up their most loyal consumers as Burger King created a meat-scented men's body spray back in 2008. BK's "The Flame” embodied “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”

Who let the Red Lobsters into the Olive Garden?

Darden Restaurant Inc, the operator of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, has opened three Red Lobster - Olive Garden combined store locations in smaller cities that they believe cannot economically support standalone locations.

As the picture below shows, the locations have two separate entrances entrances and dinning rooms, but reportedly share a bar area, kitchen, and bathrooms. Customers in one dinning room cannot order from the menu of the adjoining restaurant.

On the surface the strategy appears to make strategic sense, reach new customers by creating economies of scale to control costs and deliver incremental revenue.  Nevertheless, I question the overall strategy.  I would argue both restaurant chains have lost they way from their historic brand compasses and now currently suffer from a lack of authenticity.  For example I would venture to guess that many middle class Americans question how fresh the seafood at Red Lobster really is, while Olive Garden is hardly seen as real italian.  The fact that consumer sentiment has drifted from these initial positions is due to business decisions putting profit in front of brand equity.  The two in one concept further plays up the chain aspects of both brands and helps continue diluting their authenticity.  Then there is the old marketing rule that if do two things well enough it means you don't do anything great.

While Yum brands has executed this strategy on many of their fast food and QSR brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, and Pizza Hut) with a major difference versus Darden's full-service restaurants being that they usually have joint dinning rooms, which enable families to all order different foods and then sit together delivering a benefit for the customer.