News

Thinking atop the box

Glued-on flyers used to rule box-top marketing. Now the tactic includes magnets, stickers, full menus — even shared advertising opportunities with other companies.

May 2, 2005

Box-top advertising has always worked for Andy Sears, but he had a hunch it had more potential.

The co-owner of C&M Pizza in Leominster, Mass., Sears surmised that if he could get other companies to advertise on his box-toppers, it could reduce his own printing costs and grant him new points of distribution in the process.

To test the waters, Sears visited a handful of companies whose concepts are complementary to pizza: movie theaters, movie rental stores and party supplies stores. He told owners they could piggyback their ads and coupons onto his box-toppers if their staffers would hand

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out the same printed pieces to customers at their outlets. The sale was easy.

"It was just a lay-up for them. I didn't ask for any money because I was going to print these anyway," said Sears. "They loved the idea of it not costing them anything."

Now, every time a C&M pizza comes to the door, customers see box-topper with ads and coupons from C&M and for video rentals, movie tickets, etc. In turn, every customer renting a video at Sears' advertising partner's store gets the same pizza-centered box-topper placed into the bag with the video.

"When that person's home watching the movie, you know they're going to get hungry, and it's natural to order pizza," Sears said. "I also worked out a deal with a movie theater where I get a space to put out some menus and coupons. People see those when they're leaving the theater."

A'Deas Printing owner Roth Christopherson said he's encouraged his clients for years to consider sharing space on box-toppers. But almost no one took that suggestion until now. A handful of independent operators have done it, he said, but by and large, his chain clients have shunned the notion.

"When I'd suggest it, they'd say, 'Absolutely not,'" said Christopherson, whose company is in Wichita, Kan. "It wasn't like they were arrogant about it, they just didn't like the idea of helping someone else with something they were paying for."

But it appears the thinking of some franchisees of those chains is changing, he added. "It's a matter of dollars now, because they spend so much on it every year. And if they can find a way to get their costs down, they'll think about it, which they're doing now."

A more common chain-level cost saver, Christopherson said, is printing both sides of box-toppers, something not possible before the creation of products like A'Deas' Stick-It and True Label's Stick-N-Save in the last two years. Unlike operations that attach their printed materials with glue sticks, Stick-It and Stick-N-Save use an adhesive that is tacky, but removable, like a Post-It note. Customers can remove the box-topper from the box and post it on a refrigerator for later review.

To boot, the ease of applying either product at the store level removes the need for glue sticks or stickers.

"It makes it a whole lot faster," Christopherson said. "Any time you can make things run more efficiently at the store, people really like it."

La Nova Pizza pushes the box-topper idea several steps further by tucking a full-color, four-page menu into the edge of the pizza box.

"It's not a traditional box-topper," said Ben Lamont, marketing vice president of the two-unit Buffalo, N.Y., company. "The pages are heavy (stock), so you don't want to try to fold it much. And trying to attach it to the box would be encumbering."

As La Nova's sole print piece, the menu is revised only twice a year. What gets multiple revisions annually, however, is the company's pizza box. Not only do graphics change to reflect the seasons, holiday themes also are uses.

"At Christmas, we'll have Santa delivering La Nova pizza, or we'll do something different to highlight our anniversary period," Lamont said. "We alter our boxes more than we alter our menus. But we have that luxury because we go through so many of them. We can make a lot of changes without hitting the bottom line too hard."

Not only does La Nova print the inside and outside of its boxes, it uses a high-density corrugate to keep boxes from being stuffed into customers' garbage cans, Lamont said. "Because you can't fold them up, they have to sit outside the garbage. So it becomes its own standing (marketing) piece out in front of

What's Important Box-top marketing is a proven, affordable and reliable tactic for leading existing customers to buy again. Operators have become very creative in courting partners to piggyback onto their print promotions and share the cost. Advances in adhesives has made box-toppers easy to apply to boxes without using glues. The new adhesives act much like a Post-It Note, adhering to many surfaces while being easily removed.

the house."

Redline Press owner Trent Marquardt said some of his customers have learned to limit their box-topper magnet costs by providing customers an incentive to return them.

"Some say that every time a customer collects 10 magnets, they can turn them in and redeem them for something free," said Marquardt, whose company is in Kansas City, Kan.

Say what?

Since the cost and weight of box-topper magnets virtually requires they be much smaller than common printed pieces, the message operators try to communicate with them is usually straightforward and unchanging. Not changing the message, therefore, allows their reuse.

"With magnets, having the phone number printed as big as possible is the most important thing," said Marquardt. "And beyond that, it's whatever message you want to get across quickly, like 'Fast, free delivery,' or 'Pizza, pasta and subs.'"

Pizza marketing guru Kamron Karington recommends operators use box-toppers to deepen customers' knowledge of the operation. Operators should use the opportunity to convey their business's points of difference and uniqueness (i.e. "gourmet pizza" or "dough made fresh, in-store," daily). Boxtoppers are good for promoting side items, salads or dessert menus, things customers who called for pizza might not know you have.

Deep discounts, Karington added, should be used to attract new customers only, i.e. not on box-toppers.

"If you're going to discount (on a box-topper) at all, make it a slight one, like 50 cents or a dollar," said Karington, who once owned and operated four pizzerias. He is also the author of the Black Book of Pizzeria Marketing. "If it were me, I'd consider putting a free order of breadsticks or a brownie or a salad on that. That lets you reward them for calling you in the first place, and it lets them try something else on the menu. Plus, when anybody gets anything for free, they're happy."

While brevity is important to Karington and a variety of messages is important to C&M's Sears, Lamont sees repetition and a complete offering of information as key to driving the La Nova message deep into his customers' minds.

"We totally believe in the saturation factor when it comes to giving out our menus," said Lamont. Having the full menu on hand, he believes, leads them to try new things. "Sure, maybe they throw some of those menus out over time, but they way I figure it, if they get 10 menus in a 10-month period, they'll have at least two or three in the drawer somewhere."