Pizza Hut guerrilla marketing: PR on a $500 budget

Most people don't associate Pizza Hut guerrilla marketing with executive recruitment.

Yet in September 2024, the pizza giant inserted itself into the cutthroat New York City job market. They launched "ResZAmes" and promised to deliver job seekers' resumes printed directly on pizza boxes.

The internet loved it. The media covered it. And it cost next to nothing.

Here is how a legacy brand used a low-budget stunt to dominate the conversation.

The mechanics of the Pizza Hut viral stunt

The setup was simple.

September is a peak hiring month often called the "September Surge." Pizza Hut identified a common enemy to rally against. CareerMinds data shows that 75% of resumes never get read by a human.

That is a depressing statistic. It is also a perfect marketing hook.

Pizza Hut built a simple landing page called ResZAmes. They asked job seekers in New York City to upload their resumes and the address of their dream employer.

The creative agency Mischief @ No Fixed Address handled the execution. The offer was straightforward. If selected, Pizza Hut would print your resume on a custom box. Then they would hand-deliver it along with a medium cheese pizza to the corporate headquarters.

It ran for only 6 days. They selected just 25 winners.

From an operations standpoint, this was tiny. It required printing 25 stickers and baking 25 pizzas. But the story was much bigger than the logistics.

Spending $500 to get on CNBC

Let's look at the math.

A medium cheese pizza costs Pizza Hut about $20 to make and deliver. Multiply that by 25 winners. The total product cost was around $500.

Even with the cost of the custom website and agency fees, the media leverage was massive.

Within 48 hours, the campaign appeared on CNBC, Fortune, and Ad Age. On X, the hashtag #ResZAmes generated thousands of impressions.

Marketing often suffers from over-complication. We think we need million-dollar budgets to make a splash. Pizza Hut proved you only need a relatable problem and a physical prop.

They didn't try to solve unemployment. They just acknowledged that job hunting sucks. Then they offered a funny solution.

When B2B sales taste like pizza

Pizza Hut gets the credit here. But you don't need to sell food to make this work. Smart B2B startups use physical delivery to break into enterprise accounts all the time.

Take the YC-backed startup Delve.

They didn't have a pizza oven. They had a "Doormat Gambit."

They identified their top 100 enterprise prospects. Instead of sending cold emails, they mailed physical doormats to their offices.

The cost was around $6,000. It sounds expensive compared to a pizza. But the ROI was undeniable.

The stunt generated over 40,000 views on social media. More importantly, it closed $60,000 in enterprise deals and contributed to a $2 million pipeline.

The difference is intent. Delve used physical goods as a direct sales channel. Pizza Hut used them for brand sentiment.

Both examples prove a core rule of cold outreach. It is hard to ignore a package that takes up physical space on your desk.

The psychology of free food

We live in a digital attention economy. Emails are easy to delete. LinkedIn messages are easy to ignore.

Physical objects work because they are pattern interrupts.

A receptionist might throw away a letter. They will rarely throw away a fresh pizza or a heavy package. The box sits on a desk. People walk by. They ask questions. The resume gets read.

For marketers and founders, the lesson is clear. You don't need to be a billion-dollar pizza chain to do this.

You just need to find the physical mailbox your competitor is ignoring.

If you are selling to real estate agents, send them a physical key. If you are selling to coffee shops, send them a branded mug.

Pizza Hut showed us that the medium is the message. Sometimes that message is greasy. And sometimes that is exactly what it takes to get noticed.

Top Tweets of the day

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I feel like there should be a way to remove watermarks but you probably have to pay for them.

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You get 2 benefits from doing things like this:

1. Engagement

2. Conversion

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