What The Hut?

No one OutPizzas the Hut.

I'm not exactly sure what that means, but then there are so many taglines which leave me scratching my now white-haired chin.

If by outpizzas, the good folks from Yum Brands, their parent company, mean no one makes a better pizza, I would make one small tweak : Every One OutPizzas the Hut.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say they don't even make pizza, they make toast with ketchup and cheese. Seriously, this ex-pat from New York won't go near PH. Even if they paid me. Which they did when I was freelancing on the account.

Last week, these faux Italian cuisine aficianados were in the news. They had, for no other reason than some hotshot creatives in their marketing department suggested they do so, assembled the world's largest pizza. You may have seen pictures of it on the news. 

A giant "pizza" spanning close to 1/3 of an acre splayed out on a soundstage/warehouse. Humongus, yes. Appetizing, only if you like your cold raw dough with accoutremont, served off the floor. How did the braintrust at PH cook said pizza? With patio heaters? Or flamethrowers?

You'd think a company that was so meticulous and detail-oriented in their marketing (sadly I know this from experience) would have thought this through a little better. I'm reminded of the time I was asked to work on their new bacon-stuffed crust pizza, which in hindsight was not an altogether bad idea. 

Everyone loves bacon. And bacon makes everything taste better. There's bacon ice cream. Bacon chocolate. Hell, sometimes I'll even wrap my nightly salmon with bacon.

You can imagine my surprise when I was handed this important directive concerning any new work for the promotion of the new bacon-stuffed crust...

By the way, this chart never fails to make me laugh. (it's not even drawn correctly)

It, perhaps more than anything I've ever encountered in my 35+ years in advertising, sums up the insipid nature and complete ignorance of how mass communication works. Or is supposed to work.

Well, at least it was for years.

With the world's largest inedible and useless pizza, the genii at the Hut have managed to Outpizza themselves.