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Rebranding Reviews: Pizza Hut

September 16th, 2009

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Note: Point.Click Media has not been involved with this project. This is merely a review for study purposes:

pizzahut

The Pizza Hut chain is no stranger to change and experimentation. Not too long ago they recently changed a number of their US and UK restaurants to adopt the moniker “Pasta Hut” to promote their new health-conscious menu and asked customers to vote on the new name. After the campaign failed miserably in the United States, needless to say, the Brits did not approve either. After 80% of voters displayed their distaste for the new name, the original Pizza Hut brand was quickly reestablished before the droves of hungry patrons showed up with torches and pitchforks (which I assume was not for trying the new Meaty Marina Tuscani Pasta).

With the “Pasta Hut” brand virtually falling on its face with the change not being welcomed at all by customers, the brilliant folks pulling the strings (of cheese?) at Pizza Hut came up with a groundbreaking idea: Let’s change the name AGAIN!

And with that comes the new ‘cutting edge’ (have you had enough of the puns yet?) brand:

The Hut.

“The What?”

The Hut.

Well, it does fit in with the abbreviated text-savvy youth generation. I’ll give them that. They’ve also kept the ‘Hat’, or ‘Hut’ icon to let us know they haven’t completely lost their minds.

It’s probably not the best practice to change a household company brand to correspond with every little promotion your business is putting out there, but I’ll still cautiously give ‘The Hut’ the benefit of the doubt on this one. They are, in fact, introducing a healthy variety of new products that will significantly alter their menu and corporate image. But to me, and I consider myself to be the average person, upon first impression – if I’m looking for a place to hog down a 12 inch all meater with extra cheese – I’m probably not interested in going to a place named “The Hut”. Does it not sound like a sleazy, rundown nightclub? Will a 6-foot-6, 350 pound ex-linebacker named Bruno be showing me to my table tonight? Fabulous!

I’ll have the Thin Crust and a White Russian, please. How about you? Let us know what you think.

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Posted in Branding Reviews on September 16th, 2009

One Response to “Rebranding Reviews: Pizza Hut”

  1. Helga Dorrough, on February 21st, 2010 at 12:02 am Said:

    Great articles & Nice a site….

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