The Pieology Turnaround

The Frozen Yogurt Syndrome (Yes, we will talk pizza…)

It happens every decade or so. A restaurant category booms and there is a fight to gain share between a herd of competitors that all swim in a sea of sameness. The soft-serve frozen yogurt category has been particularly famous for this through two massive category expansions and subsequent crashes over the past few decades. The first is the original incarnation of simply offering the product, and the second is the more recent build/top your own experience. In both instances, the category was ripe for copycats with low-cost ease of entry, plenty of ingredient suppliers to choose from, and access to a never-ending supply of non-proprietary equipment. A recipe for an eventual contraction en masse.

Fast Casual Pizza…We’ve Seen This Movie Before

Before working with Pieology, Hack Strategy Group was engaged to create a new pizza brand for Saudi Arabian-based Olayan Food which was a franchisee of Burger King, Texas Chicken (The Middle East version of Church’s Chicken), and Buffalo Wild Wings.  They wanted a pizza brand but did not want to be a franchisee this time around.  The directive for BrandTrip Partners was to approach the project with a blank page and find a white space in the crowded pizza market where the new brand could thrive. To view the Turnstone Pizza case study click here>>

The first step was to do our research on both United States-based pizza brands and leading brands in the Middle East.  Both groups were competing in the region.  The Fast Casual Pizza category had just started its hyper-expansion phase with brands such as Blaze Pizza, MOD Pizza, Pieology, Pizzeria, Pizza Studio, and Pie Five. 

They were all opening locations weekly and signing big development deals across the country even though each of those brands was only three or four years old. All had little in the way of an established long-term proof of concept other than the service format seemed to work for Chipotle and Subway pretty well.

In our opinion, we were seeing “The Yogurt Syndrome” rear its ugly head once again, but this time in the form of a pizza in. There were virtually no differences between the fast-casual pizza brands, and like the yogurt brands that came and went before them, the cost of entry was low and the ease of replication was high. Our prediction was a contraction would be quickly on the horizon.

The End of The Pizza Party

The first cracks in the category began to appear only a year later in 2016. Pie Five, part of publicly-traded Rave, began to report double-digit same-store comparable sales decline quarter after quarter. Then came the Pie Five store closures.

Pizza Studio, once a darling in the category similarly began their store closings and unrealized expansion as franchisees stopped developing units.  More recently one of the hottest of these pizza brands, Blaze Pizza, discontinued issuing financial updates on their website as of March 27th, 2018 that they were likely publishing in advance of a potential initial public stock offering.  It was a heavy hint that everything wasn’t perfect in pizza paradise.

Pieology Goes Back To School

Internally, Pieology was struggling with the same issues.  Same-store sales and average unit volumes were dropping and franchisees were discontinuing development.  Management saw the writing on the proverbial pizza box and knew they needed to find a fresh recipe for success.  If they didn’t, in act three of this familiar film they would be forced to shoot the dark ending.

What’s Burning In The Pizza Oven?

With each of our BrandTrip Partners engagements, it starts with an assessment of the situation.  For Pieology, here are the highlights:

•There was a singular product concentration risk tied to a value-priced model. A build-your-own pizza with as many toppings as you like for a fixed $8.45. Almost all the rest of the product mix was soda and tea. Keep in mind, that this was the same menu strategy issue at all the competitor brands as well.

•The brand had no differentiating ingredients or product stories.

•The company had no overarching brand purpose.

•Speed of service was painfully slow in a category that promises speed.

•Marketing and marketing technology had major opportunities.

•The brand lacked consumer research and business intelligence tools.

Developing The Secret Sauce

To turn the ship, we helped them with the following:

•An overarching brand purpose. The Pieology “Why.”

•A new menu model.

•Fixing their base dough recipe.

•Developing differentiated products and ingredients with valuable stories.

•A new marketing plan, media/messaging model, technology, and CRM stack.

•A new prototype with a category-differentiated experience.

•Sourcing of new key department staffing and outside support vendors.

A few highlights of this turn-around plan are as follows

The Pieology Purpose

The tagline that Pieology used at the time was “The Study of Custom Pizza.”  Our thought was that if you are studying it, it doesn’t sound like you figured it out yet. 

A brand purpose should reflect why your brand exists and how it will be inspirational to a community that shares that common interest/mission.  As opposed to one of those long mission statements from the 1990s that few internal team members can remember, the shorter the stated brand purpose the better.

As we did our discovery phase, there was one common element throughout all the locations that sparked an idea of what the brand's purpose could be.  Internally, it was simply called “The Quote Wall.” 

The founder, a former professional sports coach, included it in the very first location and continued to refine it as more locations opened.  It was his original thought that in the brief time patrons were in the restaurants, possibly one of these creative and inspirational quotes could turn their day or maybe even their lives into something better than when they initially walked through the doors. 

On social media, photos of these quotes were heavily shared as well as narratives about how they personally touched the guests. These narratives reflected his original goal of positively impacting lives with creative inspiration. We felt this connection had the seeds of something that could be their true brand purpose. Their original “create your own” pizza format also spoke to creative personal freedom to explore or customize. These two primary brand elements led us to believe some derivative of “create” could be a valuable and influential word in the brand purpose as it was inherent in their DNA.

Since Pieology is a restaurant company, the word “Serve” seemed important as well since serving guests, communities, team members, franchise partners, and investors were all critical to the success of the organization.

Ultimately, we were able to help the organization develop its brand purpose of “Serving Creativity.” Its mission would be to become a servant leadership brand supporting local and global creative good.

This would be the umbrella under which the purpose would be expressed through food, experience in the restaurants, how local and global communities are supported, and how they would provide opportunities for the team members/franchise partners/investors in their company.

Creating Frequency & Speed With Crust Choice

The process of ordering at Pieology was the same as it was at all their competitors.  Get in the cue line, stare at a large menu board full of words that you have to somehow read from afar, tell the Pieology team member about the kind of pizza you want, and then if it is a custom pizza you pick your toppings along the way just like building a burrito at Chipotle or a sandwich at Subway.

We had learned a long time ago that lots of words on large menu boards take the fast out of fast-casual.  We also identified the following menu design issues:

•The eleven “Chef Inspired” pizzas barely registered as a percentage of all sales, yet they comprised 30% of the available real estate on the menu boards. These were all eliminated. The guest had clearly voted no.

•Drinks were listed on the menu board, yet by the time you got to checking out, you couldn’t even see the menu board anymore.

•The “Custom Pie” imagery was confusing to guests.

•Overall, there was a lack of design to influence purchases and highlight signature items/flavors.

One of the first phases of expressing “Serving Creativity”, and delivering an improved menu model, was to introduce the option of unique crust choices. Instead of leading with a menu board full of words and a subsequent long conversation with a team member about which crust you would like, we redesigned the menu board with simple yet striking images. This allowed the guests to decide well in advance what kind of crust they would like to choose. This design sped up the ordering process substantially. The guests were ready and knew which crust they wanted when they got to the point of order.

Additionally, the images whet the appetite of the guest to trade up out of the classic thin crust that we had identified earlier through third-party research as something a substantial number of guests were not returning for.  The new crusts were a combination of classics and on-trend perceived healthy options providing more creative flavors and solutions for certain healthier eating preferences. No other major competitor had any kind of crust choice even close to this selection.

Finally, we created a separate board to be placed at the point in the process where you need to make that decision.  The old menu board had the drinks on it, but by now it was 15 feet away from you and too far away to read.

Serving Creativity Post BrandTrip Partners Engagement

It is always our goal to help brands create a long-term brand purpose, and playbook, that can drive the business well beyond their limited engagement with BrandTrip Partners. Pieology is the perfect example of a brand that has continued to leverage the brand purpose we helped them develop and take it to new levels.

Following our exit, one of their first successful menu innovations under the “Serving Creativity” mantra was in the area of pizza toppings. The majority of the toppings available to the guest were what you would expect.  Pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, etc.  Nothing special.  Nothing different than the next place down the street.  No reason to return or decide to turn left to go to Pieology instead of turning right to go to a competitor.

Following the success of the on-trend perceived health benefit crusts, the first topping launch featured plant-based protein beef meatballs, spicy Italian sausage rounds, and diced chicken.  No other major competitor in the pizza category offered these toppings.  You could only get them at Pieology. The timing was perfect as the plant-based protein trend was booming.

The Results

These featured executions of “Serving Creativity,” and others not mentioned in this case study, increased sales substantially through a combination of faster throughput, improved guest return frequency, new guest transactions, and higher check averages.  It was real growth for the brand on all measurable levels. Pieology finally experienced sustainable sales and transaction growth for the first time in three years.