Sunay Bhasin, Marketing Head, Pizza Hut, Yum! Restaurants India, balances variety, affordability and consistency to ensure that the brand stands true to its promise of being an easy-on-the-pocket casual dining restaurant
ABOUT THE BRAND
Pizza Hut made its foray into India with a restaurant in Bangalore in June 1996 and was the first international restaurant chain to enter this category in India. In the last 15 years, Pizza Hut has evolved from a Quick-Service Restaurant (QSR) to an affordable casual dining restaurant (ACDR) and has added variety in its menu. Pizza Hut has 131 dining restaurants across 34 cities in India, which see over 70,000 footfalls per day. Plans are afoot to double its presence in the next four years. It is one of the flagship brands of Yum! Restaurants India, which also has KFC and Taco Bell under its umbrella.
CMO FILE
Bhasin joined Pizza Hut India in 2007 as a Marketing Manager, and helped set the brand on its Affordable Casual Dining Restaurant (ACDR) journey. In August, 2009 he moved to Dallas, US where he was responsible for the marketing activities of KFC International. Bhasin was recently appointed the Marketing Head of Pizza Hut, India. An IIM, Calcutta alumnus, Bhasin has over 10 years of experience in allied fields of brand management and marketing. He has earlier worked with brands like SC Johnson and GSK, where he honed his marketing skills.
Q] What was the thought process behind taking up the completion of 15 years idea for your communication?
Completing 10, 15, 20 or 25 years is a significant milestone in a brand’s journey, and we thought it would be a great way of celebrating with our consumers and guests. Consumers love to come to us and have a great food and dining experience. So it is like a way of thanking them for the love that they have shown for the brand. We have also added a new range of 15 Indian pizzas, which again is part of the celebration.
Q] Pizza Hut is regarded as a highly trusted brand in the food category. Many brands talk about the trust factor and even use it in their communication. Why has Pizza Hut never done so?
We believe that we must strive to give the very best to our consumers, as a result of which the trust, regard and love will come. It doesn’t go the other way. I think that fact is to be sort of relished and enjoyed and it goes to show that all the efforts that we actually put into building our brand and our restaurants is paying off. But to run a campaign saying ‘I’m great’ is probably not good. A few brands have taken up the trust factor and that is fair. It differs from brand to brand. But we are focused on consumer experience.
Q] What is the growth rate you see in the industry?
I can’t share percentages with you but in the year that went by, we saw a strong double-digit growth and the pattern has been similar throughout our journey. We have opened nine new restaurants in the last month-and-a-half. We now have 131 sit-down restaurants and our aim is to double that in the next four years. So we are aiming to reach 250 by 2015.
Q] What is the unique challenge that Pizza Hut faces in India that it does not face in other parts of the world?
I strongly believe that our world is a lot more homogenous than heterogeneous. I think the challenges are pretty much the same. The biggest challenge that we have in India as well as everywhere else is to make sure that we are always affordable, so that consumers come back to us as often as possible. Given the kind of inflationary pressures that we have seen, it has gone down a bit in the last couple of weeks, but we have to ensure that we are affordable. The second thing is that consumers around the world have evolved and are demanding more variety. So the challenge is to keep bringing variety in the menu and be able to deliver food and experience consistently at all times. And then of course there is this thing of balancing variety, affordability and consistency.
Q] You mentioned being affordable, but by positioning yourselves as an affordable casual dining restaurant (ACDR) from a Quick-Service Restaurant (QSR) last year, are you still maintaining that affordability factor?
To make sure that we keep ourselves affordable is sometimes a challenge in the inflationary environment that we operate in. Having said that, we have been able to deliver that promise very well till now. Our weekday special offer has been a big hit. Also we have starting price points which are absolutely the very best across the board in terms of any dining restaurant chain. So we are very conscious that we keep our concept as affordable as possible to our consumers without compromising on the quality or the variety of Pizza Hut. So, it is not that the casual part and the affordable part are working in opposite directions. It is about making sure that the two are obviously always woven in a way that our consumers can derive the maximum joy and benefit out of it.
Q] Notwithstanding what your research indicates, many people I know who were Pizza Hut loyalists up to last year now perceive your brand to be expensive, after the repositioning. Would you like to comment on this?
I respect the view that you are sharing with us... that a few people perceive us to be a little expensive. But on the contrary, we are being seen as far more affordable now by a larger set of people. That is something we have seen in the numbers. However, the reality also is that we have had to take up our pricing a couple of times. Not by large amounts, but we have been forced to take it up sometimes. It is our endeavour to ensure that we are seen as affordable. From the kind of responses we have received to our weekday special, it goes to show that people are warming up to the affordable layer that we have actually introduced in our menu.
Q] As you mentioned, the food retail market has evolved a lot in India and many international and even Indian players have joined the race for QSRs and casual dining. What is your view on the competitive scenario in the space?
The fact that there is more competition coming into the space is absolutely great, because it shows that this category is growing at a great pace. Competition is also good because it makes sure that we always give our best to the consumers and are able to stay ahead in the game. So, it is true that the category is growing very fast and I see strong numbers for the category in the years to come. There is room for a lot of people to be in it together.
Q] Another of your brands, KFC, is a QSR. Is that one of the reasons why you repositioned Pizza Hut from a QSR to a casual dining restaurant?
Both Pizza Hut and KFC have always been very different categories within the food retail segment. I think we were seen as a QSR among consumers earlier, but we have consciously tried to address that and it has nothing to do with KFC. It is part of Pizza Hut’s journey or evolution. I cannot really comment on KFC as a different team handles it.
Q] You have a separate brand for your delivery business called PHD. Why two separate brands when it represents the same Pizza Hut promise?
The two categories are fairly distinct. While both offer similar products i.e., pizzas, separate brands work well in terms of being able to deliver the best to our guests or our consumers. That is why the brand distinction is a logical thing.
Q] So, are the operations of these two brands entirely different? When a customer orders a pizza from PHD, is it delivered from the Pizza Hut restaurant’s kitchen?
Yes, PHD and Pizza Hut are separate entities. We have some restaurants from where PHD does deliver. I know it sounds very complex, but for the last one to two years, there has been a conscious effort from our side in terms of separating the two. It will be done in good time. But all new restaurants and PHD delivery outlets are completely different.
Q] Are these two brands also perceived as being separate entities among consumers?
Yes, of course. The mother brand is the same. PHD is also Pizza Hut Delivery, but I think people now understand that delivery units are separate and restaurants have a different promise and experience. Consumers in some ways see both as the Pizza Hut brand, but distinct from each other. Over a period of time, that distinction will be clearer. Of course, it is early days yet, because we just started on this journey roughly a year-and-a-half or two years ago.
Q] Lastly, how are you using digital media to build your brand?
On the digital side, I personally see a big boom coming. It is already booming, but there is another big one which is just round the corner. We are conscious of that and we have a full plan around digital media that we will implement. Digital contributes significantly to our overall ATL-BTL mix. Almost 10% of our budget is ear-marked for Digital. We have a social media page on Facebook, which is absolutely thriving. Digital will continue to get stronger. It will play a larger role in our scheme of things as time goes by.
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