“The heart of every campaign is the product. We all know that our food cravings are highly inspired by our mood,” says Aanandita Datta, CMO at Pizza Hut India, while talking to us about the new campaign series the brand has come up with.
Pizza Hut’s ‘Mood Badle, Pizza Badle’ campaign features Saif Ali Khan and Shehnaaz Gill in different situations. The brand is promoting its new range of ten flavours.
“We realized we have to have a range of products for the cravings. We came up with products and then we thought ‘how do we tell the story’. So, we came up with the idea - Mood Badle, Pizza Badle.”
Asked about roping in Khan and Gill, she said, “After the product, we thought about who would be the best people to tell the story to the world and that’s when we thought of Saif Ali Khan and Shehnaaz Gill, they are so interesting and have unique personalities. This is Gill’s first TVC and we have received a lot of love.”
The brand has worked on the TVC with Creative Land Asia. On the unique associations, Datta said, “A lot of brands have a long-term relationship with brand ambassadors. But for us, we first focus on what is consumer insight and then what is the story we want to tell and then who can tell it. So, it’s a unique way of selecting people.”
On the perspective of brand positioning, Datta said, “From a core brand positioning, we want to make the brand younger, making it an everyday brand. In order to be relevant to the consumer, you have to move on with time and be relevant to the consumer at that time. We have four basic pillars of success - How do we ensure the taste? We do a lot of innovations that cater to a variety of audiences. We need to be there at the top of the mind. With this TVC, apart from the TV and digital medium, we are doing a lot of activities driving social engagement and driving conversations with audiences of different cohorts. We have to give friction-less experience, we need to translate top service standards through delivery as well because of the changing times. How do you make the brand accessible? Pizza Hut has made a huge expansion. The company has 800 stores across the country.”
Speaking on the media mix, she said, “Due to Covid, we heavily invested in digital, because we realized consumers were spending time on digital. Post-Covid, people have come back to their earlier reality. Our footprint has also increased, we are present in 199 cities in the country. TV also has a huge footprint and so for this campaign TV is our primary medium followed by digital.”
With brands facing so much backlash online and lacking the ability to come over with the crisis immediately, we asked Datta what should be a brand's approach. She says brands should be authentic with their approach. “In my experience as a marketer, acknowledge the mistake, and if there is no mistake be true to what you believe. Be true to what your stand for.” She stated.
Asked about the future plans of the brand, Datta said, “We have a strong innovation pipeline. Currently, we have a pipeline of products for the next 18 months. And when you have products, you would want to reach out to consumers and tell them stories. We will be focusing on innovation and a top-of-the-mind brand proposition.”
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