When mad.co.uk broke the news last week that AMV had won the account it lost three years ago to Wieden + Kennedy (W+K), it led to much speculation concerning Pizza Hut’s current marketing situation.

In March, W+K took the unusual step of resigning from the business, worth £13.5 million last year, amid rumours it had become increasingly frustrated by the creative potential its joint ownership afforded.

As the result of a 50/50 joint venture between the world's largest restaurant group, Yum Brands, and the UK's leading leisure business group, Whitbread, the restaurant chain has been accused of having too many masters with conflicting images of the brand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite plans to cut its TV budget to focus on brand-only campaigns in other media, there were still six major television advertising campaigns during the year, worth £7 million of ad spend; May-June, July, September, November, February and April-June 2008.

Between 2 May 2007 until last week (2 May 2008), YouGov’s online polling of Pizza Hut and its 500 outlets found that its buzz rating, a measure of whether people have heard positive or negative things about a company, crept up from 0.9 to 2.6 percentage points.

However, satisfaction in the brand dropped slightly from 11.4 to 10.1, and perceived quality fell from -4 to -5.6.

The chain’s recommend ratings, an indication of whether people would want to work for, or use, a particular brand, was also slightly down from 5.1 to 4.8.

The largely static performance comes amid a general drive for healthy-eating and growing pressure from lobbyists for further government restrictions on the advertising of fast food, particularly to children.

The YouGov data does show the company’s buzz ratings peaked during two marketing pushes in mid-June and mid-November.

Pizza Hut’s cinema family gold spot sponsorship that saw ads run before every U-certificate film, helped grow its June buzz to 3.4.

This was accompanied by a nationwide TV campaign throughout the summer holidays, offering families free cinema tickets, which boosted both satisfaction and quality ratings.

More TV activity helped provide a welcome lift to recommend levels in the early autumn, rising from 3 at the start of July to 4.8 by the end of September. 

In December, Pizza Hut launched its 'Four for All' pizza campaign, aimed at getting families together in the restaurant. It coincided with satisfaction levels hitting an annual high of 13.8 per cent.

Going forward, AMV’s immediate focus will be to support the brand’s relaunch in September. The activity will be followed by significant new investment in refurbishments and a number of new store openings in 2009 and 2010.

Under the control of marketing director Hugh Wood, Pizza Hut plans to move the brand away from its fast-food background towards promoting a more casual dining experience.

AMV has been tasked with shifting its marketing accordingly, but the chain will be hoping the new approach will also make more of a splash in the public's perception too.

Arif Durrani is news editor of mad.co.uk.