Pizza Category Becoming More Undifferentiated

PRLog (Press Release) – Jul 06, 2009 – (DENVER, CO.) – June 24, 2009 – Restaurant Marketing Group, a division of ZenMango® has released the results for the 2009 Leaky Bucket® study which measures why customers won’t return to a restaurant brand. The study was conducted among 5639 national adults and included 160 restaurant brands.  Here are the highlights:
Category becoming more undifferentiated - The pizza category as defined by the major players is largely undifferentiated in nearly every tier 1 leak category (Food, Menu, Atmosphere, Price/Value, Location, Service, and Family-Friendly). Collectively, food and menu are the biggest drivers of non-positive future visit intent. Price/value is at par for all brands which suggests that in the mind of the consumer, no “one” brand has a better price/value proposition than the others.

 

Better ingredients - Food and menu contribute to the majority of the leak for the category; the brand that exploits this will have a differentiated position in the mind of the consumer. Papa John’s has an opportunity to steal market share from Pizza Hut and Domino’s by communicating better ingredients and food superiority.
Opportunity to be menu relevant - Papa John’s has an opportunity to differentiate its brand (again) in the mind of the consumer by communicating menu relevance. Among the major players, the one brand that was above par with regard to menu was Papa Murphy’s. Papa Murphy’s core offerings are differentiated. The opportunity lies in offering a broader menu and communicating the menu offerings.

 

More compelling price/value offerings - When a consumer is making a choice of which pizza brand to use, price-value may not play a big role among the available choices. There is significant opportunity to be more relevant on price/value, as every major pizza brand is aligned at par with the pizza category average in this area.

 

Differentiated service - Each competitive pizza brand was at or above par when it comes to service. Enough attention should be given to service so levels remain strong, but focus should be towards other experience elements that are below par, such as food and menu, as the overall guest experience is only as good as its weakest link.

 

GET THE COMPLETE RESULTS:

To see the overall leak size for all 160 brands in the study visit http://leakybucket.zenmango.com or contact us for Tier 1 results for any brand or category at 303-521-1988 or info@zenmango.com

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About ZenMango®:

ZenMango provides insights through marketing research. With 18+ years of proven expertise, ZenMango has unmatched insight and focus on marketing and operations working together. ZenMango® is a fully integrated service provider. Every part of a project from research design to survey programming and reporting is done in-house. This allows us to conduct business better, faster, and cheaper. Every brand’s problem is unique and deserves a unique solution with leading edge, actionable results. Key services include custom research, moderating, ad tracking, strategic planning, branding, online surveys, ad/copy/concept testing, KPI’s, & more. Restaurant Marketing Group is a division of ZenMango® specializing in the restaurant industry.