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| Marketing.. |
Pizza politics
Yard signs sell Marco's message
Yard signs don’t influence Craig Drurey when he’s voting for president or his local city council. But yard signs did influence his job selection: general manager of a Marco’s Pizza in Barberton, Ohio.
Driving through the town last year to visit his sister, Drurey noticed a proliferation of two-foot Marco’s Pizza signs in yards. “They were everywhere,” said Drurey, who had previously worked for the company. “It was amazing. Driving into town, going to different places, you’d see them everywhere you went. What a fantastic idea about getting your name all over the place.” When he was ready to apply for a job, the pizza concept was top of mind.
Finding employees isn’t the No. 1 priority. The signs signal the opening of a new Marco’s Pizza. Residents within three miles of a newly opened franchise are asked to place a sign in their yard in exchange for two free pizzas per month, so long as the sign stays put. The program is a relatively inexpensive way to advertise the location, build interest in its opening and spread word of mouth about the pizza.
 People can get free pizzas every month if they keep Marco’s signs like this in their yard. |
About 120 residents took advantage of the offer before the Barberton location opened on May 19. That effort was so successful, said the franchise’s owner, Cameron Cummins, that it has become part of Marco’s grand opening package. “We got incredible publicity right out of the gate,” said Cummins, who also serves as Marco’s vice president for franchise marketing.
A one-time sleepy regional chain, Marco’s is making an ultra-aggressive bid to become one of the nation’s biggest pizza franchises. The company has 159 units, plus licenses for another 512 and is in the process of writing contracts for as many as 250 more, Cummins said. Its goal is to build 1,600 units by 2012, when it would have $1 billion in sales. Cummins said the company is ahead of pace on that goal.
Openings of new locations are just as aggressive. Workers are trained in two days providing pizza to family and friends. On opening night customers are given a free slice of pizza.
But the pizza yard signs are the most unique—and important, given the saturated nature of the industry in which Marco’s operates. Cummins, a marketing veteran who worked for Lexus then had his own franchising marketing company before coming to Marco’s, came up with the idea while driving around Barberton in advance of his store opening.
It was just before a primary election, and Cummins and Byron Stephens, his business partner, noticed the impact the signs had on promoting a candidate’s name—they even picked a winner in a judge’s race. So they decided to use that strategy to promote Marco’s.
While cities and counties may often object to the signs being placed on public property, few laws impact signs placed in private yards—though some, such as Chandler, Arizona, require them to be a certain distance from the front door.
Marco’s drivers keep track of homes that keep their signs up with a readily available workforce of watchful eyes known as “pizza delivery guys.” Over time, signs get lost in the snow or destroyed, or some people simply don’t want them any longer. Still, after more than a year Cummins estimated that 30 or 40 residents still have Marco’s signs in their yard and they still get free pizza.
The free pizzas, combined with the free slices on opening night, seem to be a lot of product to give away, but Cummins said it’s worth it. A high percentage of people in the company’s marketing studies who’ve tried the pizza said they would buy it again.
In addition, Cummins said, these people become company evangelists. Few people eat pizza by themselves, he said. Most order with friends or family and pizza quality is a common topic of conversation in any group. Giving away pizzas turns Marco’s into a subject of those discussions.
“Ninety-three percent of Americans have one pizza per month. It wasn’t like asking them to try goulash or something like that,” Cummins said. “Getting somebody to try the product is worth its weight in gold.”
