The Sauce – 24/07/2024

Welcome to ‘The Sauce’ – your weekly dollop of marketing news.

By Ashleigh Morris, our Content and Comms Lead.

Welcome to ‘The Sauce’ – your dollop of marketing news from the past week.

This week, Pizza Hut is looking for an extra slice of market share, the Co-op has launched a new purpose-led brand campaign, and, in a slightly ironic turn of events, ScS (Sofa Carpet Specialist) has stopped selling carpets.

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Pizza Hut Aims for an Extra Slice of Market Share With Bold OOH Campaign

Pizza Hut has launched a bold OOH campaign as part of its new sponsorship deal with the 2024 World Championship Domino Tournament.

The brand has used their strategic partnership of the tournament to target competitor Domino’s via cheeky mobile billboards outside Domino’s locations, featuring messages such as ‘Pizza Hut. Official sponsor of Dominoes’ and ‘People who like dominoes love Pizza Hut’. It marks part of a major brand refresh for Pizza Hut as they launch their new platform ‘Together We Pizza’.

We’ve seen many brands target competitors with their marketing as part of long-standing rivalries (Pepsi vs Coke, McDonald’s vs Burger King, Audi vs BMW), as well as a twist when Burger King encouraged consumers to order from McDonald’s and other competitors during the pandemic.

Our take? This campaign is a real pizza work (sorry)! Pizza Hut has nothing to lose as number two in the market behind market leader Domino’s (research released last year revealed that 39% of Brits surveyed had used Domino’s in the last year, while just 20% had used Pizza Hut*).

While we’ve seen many businesses focus on retention and loyalty recently, with such a low market share, this is a fairly low-risk strategy for Pizza Hut to try to steal an extra slice of market share from existing pizza fans.

Pizza Hut is piggybacking on Domino’s outstanding success with little risk of retaliation – firstly, as market leader they don’t need to, and secondly because any mention of Pizza Hut by Domino’s is only going to give Pizza Hut even more publicity. There’s no such thing as bad PR, right?!

Having said that, we’d love to see this develop – over to you Domino’s!

*statista.com

Pizza Hut is piggybacking on Domino’s outstanding success with little risk of retaliation… having said that, we’d love to see this develop – over to you Domino’s!

The Co-op Launches New Brand Platform Which Underlines Its Purpose

The Co-op has returned to its roots with a new brand platform focusing on its values. Created by VCCP, the platform ‘Owned By You, Right By You’ launched with a one-minute video ad ‘If you were inventing a business today, you’d invent Co-op’.

The video demonstrates Co-op’s unusual ownership model, and its values of doing right by people, stopping the abuse of workers, and spending a chunk of profits in their communities. The ad will feature on OOH, social and digital channels, and coincides with the Co-op’s new visual identity, consisting of a bespoke font and additional visual cues based on the brand’s logo.

The brand platform will focus on raising awareness of the Co-op’s ownership by customers and its contributions to education and local communities.

We’re big fans of this campaign with its purpose-focused approach. One of the first things we always discuss with a client is their purpose, why they do what they do, and what makes them different to their competitors (our co-founder James is a big fan of Simon Sinek’s inspirational book ‘Start With Why’).

We also love that it’s insights driven (I know, we say it a lot!), based on a Co-op survey which found that more than 50% of people don’t understand what it means to be a co-operative business, and 55% wanted to see more co-operatives and said they would back them.

In a competitive market, it’s refreshing to see a long-standing brand like the Co-op listening to its customers and focusing on re-establishing itself based on its values rather than purely on product-led, price-focused marketing.

It’s refreshing to see a brand listening to its customers and focusing on re-establishing itself based on its values rather than purely on product-led, price-focused marketing.

ScS Ditches Carpets in Latest Strategy Update

In a slightly ironic turn of events, ScS (Sofa Carpet Specialist) has stopped selling carpets and flooring in its stores and online.

The business dates back to 1894, when it launched as a family business called the Suite Centre Sunderland selling furnishings. Since then, it’s expanded to over 100 showrooms nationwide, and in 2012 began selling flooring products and was rebranded as Sofa Carpet Specialist.

So, what’s with the latest move? The business was taken over by Italian brand Cerezzola Limited, an Italian brand of fabric sofas and armchairs, in January this year. And, in spite of being the most prominent flooring brand of 2023, ScS had not made any gains in market share in this area, which remained at around 8%. (Add to this the fact that Carpetright announced its intention to appoint administrators earlier this month, which would suggest sales in this sector perhaps aren’t booming). So, on paper, this sales decision makes sense.

Where it seems to have fallen apart however, is with the marketing strategy around this move. With any significant change in strategy comes risks and opportunities. ScS had the opportunity here to rebrand their business (and ditch carpet from their name!), focus on promoting sofas as their area of expertise (especially in light of the acquisition by Cerzzole) and position the change as a positive.

Instead, ScS has left customers confused and has made no comment on the decision… talk about mismanagement of a situation!

Our co-founder and strategy expert James said, “We regularly see changes in the market and demand changes from consumers wanting specialist products to a one-stop-shop where all their needs are met under one roof. There’s been a lot of turbulence in the industry and economy in recent times, so ScS’s decision is not surprising. What is surprising is the way this has been positioned (or hasn’t!). It’s confusing to consumers and is a wasted opportunity from a marketing and PR perspective.

“I’d have loved to see ScS position this change positively, with a rebrand and renaming, positioning themselves as an expert in this field due to their new ownership and generating positive press and renewed consumer interest in their sofa range.”

ScS – you know where we are if you need any marketing support!

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Contact us on hello@awesomesaucemarketing.co.uk to find out how we can support your business with a client-centred marketing approach – building trust and loyalty.

You can check out previous editions of ‘The Sauce’ here. 

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