Pizza Hut Tries To Avoid Blame For Its Pizza, Shortens Name To "The Hut"
Update: To clarify, Pizza Hut isn't changing its name. It's co-adopting "The Hut" is a secondary branding mark, or something like that. (Thanks to William!)
Although the award for stupidest rebranding of 2009 remains with the SciFi Channel (it's changing to SyFy next month), Pizza Hut is running a close second by stripping out the food half of its food title and going with new branding that says it's just "The Hut."
Here's how The Hut's chief marketing officer explains it to Brandweek in an interview back in March:
yes, we're also introducing another vocabulary word with Pizza Hut, which is 'The Hut.' That ties in nicely with [today's] texting generation. We wanted to make sure that Pizza Hut and 'The Hut' become common vernacular for our brand. Red is our mark and when you see that red roof, people will refer to it as 'The Hut' or 'Pizza Hut.' As we expand our online and mobile businesses, 'The Hut' is the perfect icon for our mobile generation.
They're also trying to present a more healthful image by introducing multigrain crusts and "all natural" tomato sauce—which just raises the question, what's in their regular tomato sauce if not tomatoes?
No one in Pizza Hut's marketing department seemed to make the connection that a lot of people automatically add "Jabba" to the front of that phrase, which makes for an odd combination of imagery:
(You will not be surprised to learn that there's a website on the Hutt language.)
"'The Hut' Gives Pizza A Healthier Spin" [BrandWeek via dlisted]
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Comments:
Pizza the Hut?
Maybe serving pasta is the beginning of expanding their offerings. Funny thing, though, someone else makes their pasta dishes for them. They just heat it up and serve it! ;-)
For all your sunglasses needs.
I noticed this happening a few months ago.. Their pizza boxes already say "The Hut" on them.
@I Love New Jersey: No way! Their pizza is the best of the low-end pizzas. Pan crust meat lover's... mmmmm...
aren't free standing pizza hut restaurants kind of a thing of the past anyway? Anymore, you got Pizza Hut/Taco Bell/KFC (Kentaco Hut) in the same building anymore.
I wonder how much logic is really behind the 'texting generation' thing. Are they really trying to build market presence around texting by pretty much changing the name of the company? If Pizza Hut is not seen in any marketing, effectively they are.
I figure I'll just piss them off by referring to them by their logo: "The Hat".
You don't force the slang upon the people...
Also, shortening it by one syllable (two letters)...makes all the difference in the world.
Will we see a Tweedle Dee/Tweedle Dum thing happening: Domno's becomes "Doms" for the S&M crowd?
Papa John's becomes "Daddy's"
OH MY GOD! I TEXT! MAYBE I SHOULD EAT AT PIZZA HUT!
FINALLY A CHAIN RESTAURANT FOR MY GENERATION!
It sounds like a very bad joke. Too bad it's not. Lame.
@Daveinva:
Ya, I'm sure they'll be enraged that some nobody is calling them 'The Hat'. Better watch out they don't start sending cease and desist letters. I suggest wearing a tinfoil hat just in case they try to read your mind.
People have been calling it The Hut for decades. It was even on an episode of Friends.
Will this start a domino effect of countless other businesses shortening their names to suit the "texting generation"? Cheesecake Factory will just be "The Factory", Olive Garden will become "The Garden", and Molly Woo's will change to "Woot". Fun.
@nataku83:
It's a great pizza to have every once and a while. Not to mention all the oil really cleans the pipes if you're having some congestion on the intestinal superhighway.
@nataku83: Little Caesars totally disappeared probably 15 years ago from the Seattle area, and suddenly in the past 2-3 years like 10 new stores have popped up all over the place.
@nataku83: I live half a mile from one. They now do $5 "hot and ready" pizzas ... cheese, sausage, and pepperoni always in the warmer and ready to go. On nights when we can't be bothered to cook, a $5 hot-and-ready is kick-ass. They also now have awesome Italian cheese bread, although I feel that the crazy bread has gone down a little in quality over the years.
Next up: Taco Bell changing it's name to "The Bell", a tactic admission that nothing on their menu actually resembles a "Taco".
@tom2133: I rather go to someplace that basically just does pizza. Hell, I'd even go to a place that has some combination of "famous" "original" "Ray's" in in before I would go to some mass produced "pizza" place.
Didn't YUM brands try this already with KFC and ended up having to go back to Kentucky Fried Chicken?
I misread the link on the Hutt language as "Huttse" not "Huttese," and got very, very scared about what I was clicking.
I cannot help but think of Red Hat Linux when I see that logo.
Yes, folks, KFC and Pizza Hut are both owned by the same company.
And I point this out because KFC later expressed some regret at taking the word CHICKEN out of their name and began trying to reincorporate their old name back into advertising and marketing.
Yes, let me repeat again KFC and Pizza Hut are both owned by the same company.
And now they are taking the name PIZZA out of the brand name for Pizza Hut.
Let me say this. How ------- stupid are you people?
"what's in their regular tomato sauce if not tomatoes?"
Lots and lots of high fructose corn syrup.
href="#c13743938">I Love New Jersey: Their pizza isn't that good, until you leave the east coast. Got "pizza" in alabama once, and I would have killed for a Pizza Hut.
However, any company that thinks "the texting generation" is cooler than Spaceballs, fails.
What is up with the pasta stuff Pizza Hut is adding? Who goes to Pizza Hut for pasta? The ads look totally gross.
Also, I have yet to find chain pizza that I can't beat just by buying DiGiornio's. Thin & Crispy and Stuffed Crust is especially excellent.
Well, I'm not changing my name for them. They will remain Pizza Slut, to continue the motif along with Little Skeezers and Mac Daddy John's. I certainly can't refer to them as simply "The Slut" -- that would be crass.
@.Xenn.: If it does I will have no qualms with fire-bombing or throwing bricks through the windows of Pizza Hut headquarters.
It's too close to "The Slut"
They dont own thehut.com or thehutt.com What a joke.
@SacraBos: Taco Bell will change its name to "The Bel." After all, we are the texting generation and we don't need extra letters.
There's this place in Philly I always get pizza from. Bigger pizza for less money. And as an added bonus it doesn't suck like "The Hut" (eg: I don't get a raging case of heartburn after eating).
Anybody want to bet that this name was made up by somebody born AFTER 1987?
What's their slogan going to be? "New Name, Same Shit." NNSS for short.
@downwithmonstercable: Seems like something similar happened here in Pittsburgh.
Used to be decent, cheap pizza that didn't even come in a cardboard box. Haven't tried one lately.
Our local channel 2 has rebranded itself as "The Deuce," and they are saying it like every ten seconds. It's like that time I decided I wanted everyone to start calling me Hot Rod, and I was all like, "HEY, HOT ROD HERE," even though I was standing right there, and they could see it was me.
Anyways, I'm hoping they decide to abandon this marketing strategy, so we can finally say that Channel 2 is dropping the deuce.
Tell me that that SciFi thing is not true.
there is absolutely nothing odd about this at all.