UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging

Chapter 21. Naked Pizza

IN 2006 NAKED Pizza opened its doors in New Orleans with a mission to make an unhealthy food healthier.

Naked Pizza claims to make the world's healthiest pizza. The crust is made of 12 whole grains, low-fat mozzarella, and an additive-free tomato sauce. And from what I have heard, it is pretty darn tasty. The company's pizzas are 100 percent natural and gluten-free, so people with a condition (such as celiac disease) who cannot have wheat, can still enjoy their pizza.

In March 2009 Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a gazillionaire,^[60] advised Jeff Leach, co-founder of the pizza place, to get on Twitter. The owners wanted to create a virtual but local presence that would not only engage their marketplace but reduce the typically high cost of marketing that goes along with the pizza industry. They tested out their first Twitter-only promotion the following month on April 23, 2009.^[61] The promotion brought in 15 percent of total sales for the day. The best part is that 90 percent of those sales were new customers. One of the concerns with using a new type of marketing channel like Twitter is that if you sold 100 units of something on Twitter, it doesn't mean much if all you do is cannibalize business you would have gotten anyway—which is why the 90 percent of orders to new customers is significant. On May 29 the pizza place owners decided to try another campaign. This one generated almost 75 percent of their record-selling day—directly from people ...