Pizzeria advertising: Use Boxes as Ad Space

The Impact of COVID-19 on the billboard industry

As the drastic economic impact of coronavirus continues to spill, brands and agencies are forced to re-evaluate the current advertising methods they are using. Recently, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) surveyed nearly 400 media buyers and brands. The results were surprising: 74% think the coronavirus pandemic will have a larger impact on their advertising spend than the 2008 financial crisis. According to the President of Interactive Advertising Bureau, David Cohen, “Typically marketers will press pause for a moment, take a breath, assess the situation, replay and reevaluate.”

The traditional out-of-home advertising is expected to be largely impacted. The estimated ad spend declined 51% in March and April and another decline of 41% is expected in June 2020. Fewer people are outside reducing the appeal and effectiveness of billboards and DOOH. Advertising in malls, at bus stops, and bus shelter advertising are fast becoming replaced by in-home advertising. The impact of COVID-19 has kept the consumers inside their homes. Hence, the best ways to reach the audience will be to take your advertising message to them indoors.

Adzze has been re-evaluating the current tactics and adapting to a more sensitive message. The operations team has working on extending its reach to offer advertising methods that can reach the consumers at their safest place: at home. One of these tactics uses pizza boxes as advertising space. Think of this as small moving billboard that consumers receive in their homes and place on their dinner tables. Ad data demonstrated that this type of ads can lead to an 80% recall rate (8 out of 10 individuals recall seeing an ad on the pizza box) with an average ROI of 150%. This means, for every 1 dollar the advertiser invested in a pizza box advertising campaign, they received at least additional 2.5 dollars of sales. For more details, see the article Estimating the ROI of Pizza Box Marketing.

One of the most important metrics that advertisers track is impressions. To be sure, many advertising vehicles generate a huge amount of impressions but problems arise when it comes to converting the impressions into direct actions. As such, advertising vehicles that can achieve a high number of impressions and conversions are more in demand. One such advertising vehicle is pizzeria advertising.

Pizzeria advertising is a form of in-the-hand advertising where marketers place ads in the hands of the target audience literally. Pizzas are popular, especially among the youth. Advertisers can exploit this by custom printing pizza boxes such that they contain their ads. The advertisers then deliver the pizza boxes to select pizzerias from where the target audience can access them.

Why should you consider pizzeria advertising?

Pizzeria advertising is a novel advertising technique that promises more effectiveness compared to traditional ad vehicles. It would be imprudent to take anyone’s word for it and, therefore, it is imperative that you understand the advantages of this advertising media. In the first place, pizza box advertising is easy. A marketing campaign built on this tactic only demands custom printed pizza boxes and a delivery team.

In addition, pizzeria advertising is ideal for audience targeting. Oftentimes, advertisers want to reach a certain section of the population that it considers most valuable for their business. For example, a business that sells hoodies and designer shoes could target youths under the age 35. During an ad campaign, this business might want to target colleges and the areas around them. Pizza box advertising can facilitate this targeting in the most fruitful manner. All the advertiser needs to is to look for pizzerias in and around the college for an optimum targeting experience.

Pizza flyer advertising is cheap

One of the major sources of business expenses is advertising. Business pour a lot of funds in advertising because of the need to grow brand visibility. It gets costlier when the advertising vehicles used are expensive.  On the contrary, it costs a fraction of a dollar to print a pizza flyer and perhaps a few more dollars to supply the flyers to select pizzerias. In total, $10,000 can facilitate a two-month long advertising campaign.

Besides affordability, pizza flyer advertising is very effective. Particularly, advertisers can generate high amounts of impressions compared to the amount of effort put in. Also, the surprise factor of this advertising vehicle ensures that all targeted individuals notice the ad. Once you have the attention of the target audience, attaining the desired level of impressions easy.

Advertisers will have to focus on Stay-at-Home Ad options

The use of OOH and billboards will most likely experience more decline in the coming weeks, given the growing number of cases of infection in the United States. Businesses that dearly need to get the word out about their enterprise will have to embrace new-age advertising to stay in business. This means more customers will abandon billboard advertising to adopt indoor ads; a strategy which brands trying to avoid the cut-throat cost of sign advertising have happily been using to market themselves in recent times.

The New York Times aptly described the effect of the pandemic on outdoor advertising as a ‘seismic shock’. Even Coca-Cola is among the companies that have limited their ad campaigns during the coronavirus crisis, the New York Times report says. Long story cut short; a lot of companies are hitting the brakes on billboard ads and other forms of OOH advertising and are also pulling back until the coast clears.

Advertising boxes vs traditional media

One of the reasons for the decline of traditional advertising media is costs. Besides, it is not easy to compute the ROI from traditional advertising vehicles. This media experiences the same problem when it comes to tracking engagement. In short, this implies that traditional media is ineffective, especially for small businesses.

On the contrary, advertising boxes offer a unique opportunity for advertisers to track both the ROI and the engagement rates. In the first place, pizza box advertising enables accurate audience targeting. This enables advertisers to compare the revenues earned against the money spent on a given marketing campaign. In the second place, advertisers can easily track engagement by revisiting the individuals who received the pizza boxes. By conducting a short survey for feedback purposes, advertisers can get a sense of the engagement arising from a given ad campaign.

Pizza Box Marketing and Stay-at-Home Advertising

During this crisis marketers will have to adapt and to stay on top of the latest trends. Its critical to improve type of advertising message shifting it to more sensitive perspective. The business of marketing is changing in the age of COVID-19. Whether its effects are brief or prolonged, marketers need to be nimble in these challenging times, and pivot when needed while optimizing performance throughout the crisis.

A noticeable new normal in consumer behaviour is the increased demand for food delivery services. According to NPD, 48.5% of all restaurant spending was for off-premise orders in the past 12 months and this is expected to accelerate during the lockdown.

Adzze has been working with its clients to adapt to a more sensitive message. The team has been extending the capabilities to offer advertising options that can reach the consumers at their safest place: at home. One of these concepts uses pizza boxes as advertising space that gets delivered at the homes of the audience.

The ads are placed on pizza boxes (or pizza toppers) The advertising pizza venues deliver to the consumers at their homes. The pizza box ads get delivered in the hands of the consumers at their homes reaching on average 45 min of brand exposure. Sometimes the consumer leaves the pizza in the fridge generating additional exposure. On average, each Pizza Box Advertising venue delivers 2,000 pizza box ads per month with an estimate 1.8M impressions/month.

The ads printed on the boxes are inspected during the campaign to ensure pizzerias are distributing them to consumers. The ads on pizza boxes have an unconventional and unexpected nature. This creates a surprise effect making your brain to better perceive and understand the message.