In Living Color

CiCi's Pizza's new campaign shows low prices doesn't always mean bad service.

Chain Leader

Margaret Littman

For the folks at Deutsch Inc. in Los Angeles, the differences are black and white. Literally.

After surveying more than 600 customers earlier this year for its new client, Coppell, Texas-based CiCi's Pizza, Deutsch began to see the disparity between the budget pizza concept and its QSR competitors.

"Our fast-food friends helped us out a lot," quips Louise Georgeson, vice president and account director at Deutsch, which won the pizza chain's account in January. "We found from users and nonusers alike that the one thing CiCi's stands for is incredible service, especially at that price point."

"That price point" is $3.99, the fast-food-esque number CiCi's Pizza charges for its all-you-can-eat buffet of salad, pasta and 16 kinds of pizza. Deutsch's research revealed that many customers had low expectations of a $3.99 meal. "'Fill my belly—that's all I expect for that,' is what they told us," she says.

Customer Service

In response, Deutsch created a new TV campaign for the 19-year-old concept, part of a $15 million effort to solidify CiCi's as a national brand. The campaign cleverly juxtaposes the stereotypical service in a standard QSR with the kind of attentive service CiCi's says it offers. The typical fast-food scenes are played out in black and white, shifting to color film when the viewer sees CiCi's. The black-and-white tape catches service errors at the fictitious fast-food establishment such as wait staff talking on cell phones rather than taking orders, turning away customers at closing time, ignoring long lines and complaining about clean-up duties needed in the front of the house.

"We laughed a lot making these," Georgeson says. "We never wanted the brand to be mean spirited."

Deutsch developed the 15- and 30-second spots from the idea that almost every customer has had that kind of frustrating fast-food experience. The agency also created radio, in-store displays and billboards to complement the TV ads.

"We all have fast-food horror stories, [like] drive-thru orders that are screwed up," Georgeson says. "But people put up with it because they think they have to [in order to] have an affordable place to eat. We wanted to show them that they do not have to put up with that, that the entire CiCi's experience stands in stark contrast to that." The section in color depicts servers interacting with customers such as helping them on the buffet line and refilling drinks at the table.

Smile, You're on Hidden Camera

The black-and-white, hidden-camera approach was designed to be something to which frequent fast-food diners could relate but also allow CiCi's to stand out without spending much money.

This strategy works, Georgeson says, because CiCi's customers tend to be lower- to middle-income parents with kids under 12. Between second jobs and school schedules, they must often choose convenience over service for quick family meals.

"We have a great opportunity to show families how to save some money and feel like they are smart, that they are getting a great value as a parent," says Tom Koenigsberg, chief marketing officer for CiCi's, who joined the concept eight months ago.

Koenigsberg, who worked at T.G.I. Friday's for seven years and was a CiCi's customer when his kids were young, has been charged with strengthening the concept's national awareness and brand positioning as part of its efforts to become a national chain.

While the chain had created some TV spots for regional markets in the past, they had been developed internally. Hiring Deutsch, with whom Koenigsberg had worked in the past, was another step toward building a national profile. CiCi's growth strategy calls for 70 new restaurants in 2004, and another 80 in 2005; the company opened its 500th restaurant in Atlanta in July.

The objective of the new campaign is to generate trial and win new loyal customers, rather than simply increasing the frequency of current customers. The concept's average unit volume is an estimated $900,000; Koenigsberg's goal is to hit the $1 million mark in the near future.

Three weeks after the commercials hit the airwaves in June, same-store sales went up double digits. Koenigsberg thinks CiCi's is on the right track with the new campaign but concedes, "sustaining it is the hard part."

"We hope that people will realize that they don't have to just go through the drive-thru because they don't have another option for dinner," Georgeson adds. "We hope they'll learn that there's really nothing else quite like CiCi's."