CASE STUDIES

Case study summary

A new pizza place in Acapulco, Mexico, was opened on December, 2014.
A familiar place in a market full of tourists, bit that struggles when they're gone.
Several challenges were faced: down seasons, hurricanes, insecurity, and finding the target market.
The brand was developed from scratch: logo, slogan, printed and digital ads, social media accounts, TV and radio commercials, including every process of the creation: research, insights, production, media placement.
Pizza Bells is still running after almost three years and is one the most popular pizza places in a tough market.

Pizza Bell: Challenges overcome

the challenges

Besides the challenge that every new business encounters, Pizza Bell has had to face several unusual difficulties in its life. First of all, it had to adequate to the mood of the city that it lives in. Acapulco is a city that lives off of tourism, and when tourists come to town, business is booming. But, when every one goes back home and leaves the paradisiac beached of Acapulco, that's when the problem starts. And the worst part is, most part of the year goes by without a holiday. Besides the December vacation, Holy week, and, of course, summer (not all of it, though), Acapulco is living off long-weekends and festivities of Mexico. There are around 6 or 7 of those in the whole calendar. All other days of the year, any business in Acapulco has to live off of its own local market. And the difference is crystal clear when it's holiday time and when it's not.

Added to that, Acapulco faces another problem, which is insecurity. What once was one of the hottest vacation places in the world, featuring Elvis Presley, Ringo Starr, Sylvester Stallone, among others, is now a place where you have to thread lightly. That has provoked a decrease in tourism from year to year and a struggle for businesses to keep being alive. And, if you add to that the fact that August, September and October are months full of storms and hurricanes, It's been hard for any business in Acapulco to survive the past few years.

So, in a nutshell, Pizza Bell had to learn to be popular among the local people, and not just the tourists, in order to survive and have a business running each week of the year.

Now, focusing on the business, another challenge was to make Pizza Bell flourish as a familiar restaurant, in a town full of party-goers. The easiest thing is to sell alcohol, put on some loud music, and people will come, at least for a few months. But a familiar environment is not how the majority of businesses in Acapulco are about. Therefore, another challenge rose as the pizza place had to find a target market that has never been the most popular in the area: the families.

One more challenge was to announce Pizza Bell as "not just the typical pizza place" you always find. There are a few other pizza places in the area, but they all served the traditional pizzas. Pizza Bell is all about the flavor, about offering something different, and that's the why behind the idea of making pizzas of traditional flavors of different parts of the Mexican Republic, that's why there are artisanal beers, ice cream served in its own fruit, frappés, pastas, wine, and all of that alongside the traditional beer and pizzas for traditional people. Pizza Bell is undoubttedly a distinct place in an unusual market, the biggest challenge was to make it survive.

the solution

Me and my team were given the challenge of developing the brand from zero: we didn't even have a name. Based on my sister's name, I came up with Pizza Bell. We also had to come up with a logo that represented the best of Italian and Mexican food: hence the green, white and red. The two Z's facing each other and resembling a pizza slice was another great idea as well. The final touch was the slogan, "La pizza de México", which can mean both "the pizza from Mexico", made from mexican flavors, and "the pizza of Mexico", suggesting it's the country's representative pizza. Wordplay intended.

Now, the next step was to decide the marketing campaign. Since we needed to target a really local crowd, the best channels of communication were banners, bus ads, radio and TV commercials (only in local stations) and social media (Facebook). The campaign would be very affordable for the client, both in production (design for digital and printed ads were done by me and my team, as well as the radio commercial, and the TV production was included in the airing contract), and in media cost (TV and radio).

The best part of it, regarding my team, is that we did it with the few resources that we had. We knew the business was new, so the budget was tight. But we managed to get a photographer for a small fee (around USD $30.00), the models for the printed and TV ads were friends of ours (free), the radio commercial was produced at our university with our voices (for free), we knew an agency that could print the banners (for free), and local TV and radio is quite affordable (around USD $200.00 for both of them, airing the commercials for a month). And this was all in a lapse of less than three months.

The creative part of the campaign was very witty and yet simple. We figured out that since the pizzas were to be called "the acapulqueña" (how they call people from Acapulco), "the chiapanecan" (Chiapas) "the regia" (Monterrey), "the chilanga" (Mexico City), etc, another wordplay was put in play. "Don't you wan an acapulqueña?", "I'm craving for a chilanga", "I'd love to eat a regia", "mmm, the chilanga is so good", were some of the creative lines that accompanied a picture of a woman dressed in that place's typical clothing. So, a wordplay, not so innocent but still funny, that would provoke a smile in people's faces, and call their attention, as well as their curiosity to really try one of the pizzas that the ad talks about.

Since then, the website, Google My Business, Yelp and Trip Advisor sites were added, all created by me.

Pizza Bell opened in December, 2014, and almost three years later, it's still up and running, with its highs and lows, but with now a loyal customer base that has kept the business alive, and not just that, but booming.

the Results

The campaign resulted in:

Pizza Bell has been able to still be in business after tough times in Acapulco regarding security and and a decrease in tourism.
The Facebook page now has over 4,000 likes (one of the best in the area).
Is now consolidated as the most popular pizza place in the area.