Pizza Hut is doing an interesting take on ambush marketing with the second debate between President Barack Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney next Tuesday. The fast-food brand is offering free pizza for life to anyone who asks during the Town Hall-style debate whether they prefer sausage or pepperoni on their pizza.
The question may never happen given the control surrounding even such “open” debate scenarios as these. Still, if someone does take up Pizza Hut’s offer of one large pie a week for 30 years or a check for $15,600, it’s likely to annoy millions who are trying to inform themselves during the debates.
“It’s a terrible waste of time for the presidential candidates, the people who organize the debate and everyone who wants to listen,” said Mickey Sheridan, a 43-year-old bartender from Queens, N.Y.. “They should find some other way to advertise.”
Such a moment on television would evoke memories of Bill Clinton being asked boxers or briefs during a 1994 MTV Town Hall, or when South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson violated protocol by yelling “you lie” during the 2009 State of the Union address. “I think people are frustrated with the political process, but they don’t want it to become a zoo,” said Allen Adamson, managing director of branding firm Landor Associates in New York.
Using politics for branding can backfire, such as when Kenneth Cole compared the Arab Spring uprisings to a frenzy over the U.S. designer’s spring collection in February 2011. “Context really matters,” said Deborah Mitchell, clinical professor of Marketing at Ohio State University. “Political satire is fine if it’s in the context of where people are expecting it. When context is violated that’s when you run into trouble.”
Laura Ries, president of brand strategy firm Ries and Ries, thinks it is likely to fail even if it somehow happens because it does not substantially connect back to the Pizza Hut brand. “The problem is that it’s too contrived; it’s completely made up,” she said. “For something to move past silly gimmick and become more successful brand connection, it does have to have some sort of relevance.”
The pizza chain, part of the Yum! Brands, thinks this will be a way to lighten up the debate and ask a grounded question. “We know there are a lot of serious topics that are going to be debated and need to be debated,” Pizza Hut spokesman Doug Terfehr said. “Pizza seems to be a question everyone understands.”
Alan Schroeder, a professor of journalism at Northeastern University doesn’t think anyone who makes it into the debate audience will dare pose the question to the candidates. “It’s so unseemly, for a lifetime of free pizzas, to make a fool out of themselves in front of millions of people,” he said. “They’d have to give a partial ownership of the company for that.”
Source: Fool.com
