We get a lot of weird pitches in our inbox here at Marketing Bites Central.
Most of them provide an answer to a question no one ever asked, a solution to a problem no one ever articulated.
Are consumers clamoring to wrap themselves in a fuzzy green blanket, like a P.F. Chang’s Lettuce Wrap?
Have they been anxiously eyeing the calendar to observe the 20th anniversary of Little Caesars’ Hot-N-Ready products?
Will it drive their buying decisions to know that their favorite fast-food place is giving away a free vacation or has enlisted some c-list celebrity as a spokesperson?
Meh. Doubtful.
And then in waltzes Pizza Hut Tuesday, with a new promo that solves a problem as old as, probably, nomadic, cave-dwelling humans:
Where are you supposed to eat when you’ve just moved into a new place and the furniture isn’t assembled and your stuff is scattered everywhere and you are ravenous and just want to inhale an entire pizza?
Enter Pizza Hut’s new Moving Box Table, a truly genius invention.
It’s a specialty pizza box that turns into a miniature table, providing a “quick and easy dining setup amidst the chaos of moving,” the Plano, Texas-based pizza chain said. The cardboard table comes in a stylish red-checkered design, with a sturdy corrugated base to support the pizza box tabletop.
What’s more, 87% of Americans have ordered pizza during a move, 79% of whom admitted to consuming said pizza on the floor. And that’s according to Pizza Hut’s own data, widely known to be one of the country’s foremost sources of floor-dining analytics.
“Many can relate to the chaos that comes with moving, and the last thing you want to worry about is unpacking to enjoy a hard-earned meal at the end of a long day,” Pizza Hut CMO Melissa Friebe said. “We love that pizza is a universal moving-day tradition for many, but we hate that it ends up eaten on the floor. This Moving Box Table will help us show up for Pizza Hut customers by providing not just a delicious pizza after a stressful moving day but somewhere easy and comfortable to enjoy it, too.”
The limited-edition Moving Box Table is free with any large, menu-priced pizza. But, here’s the catch. (There’s always a catch.) It’s only available via carryout at select restaurants in “three of the most popular U.S. cities to move to,” according to Pizza Hut. They are Dallas, Charlotte and Orlando.
If you’re moving in a different part of the country, you’ll just have to make your own cardboard table.
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