Hungry Howie's.
We Ran out
of dough!
The Why.
After a decade of flat sales, America's 10th largest pizza chain was tired of trying to compete in the $5 pizza market.
ROAD TO 66% GROWTH:
The Way.
The Rebrand:
Rather than succumbing to the price war, we recommend a brand strategy to increase the perceived value of “Flavored Crust Pizza®."
The Work.
Experience Design:
We designed a brand experience worthy of a pizza that cost almost $2 more than the competition – including a new logo, retail scape and the launch of a loyalty program with a mobile ordering app.
50% OF NEW SALES
CAME FROM DIGITAL
Hyperlocal Digital.
DBA geo-mapped a 3-mile radius around each store between the hours of 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. – when pizza buyers were buying. We employed SEO/SEM, programmatic digital, social and mobile with unprecedented store-level analytics reporting. Each franchise owner personally watched their Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) drop.
Doubled Sales and Ran Out of Dough!
In one outrageously successful digital blitz, DBA focused on an obscure holiday that comes once every four years: Leap Day. By promoting a BOGO 29¢ pizza through all digital media, all at once, Howie’s generated +203% more pizza sales. Stores actually ran out of dough!
“Simply, in the four-plus decades of Hungry Howie’s history, no marketing campaign came even close,” CEO Steve Jackson said. “We stuck our toe in the water and almost drowned that first time.” – QSR Magazine, 2019
FASTEST-GROWING PIZZA CHAIN
The Work.
86% Brand Recall:
Built on multi-platform TV, the brand campaign drove a relatively unknown pizza franchise to tie for first place with 86% familiarity in its core market. The advertising campaign achieved 74% recall with less than 1/10th of the competitor’s budget.
Fastest-Growing Pizza Chain
At 66% growth, Howie's passed Domino’s for 28 quarters with the fastest same-store sales growth in the industry.
