“It’s the pizza, stupid … and maybe the beer.”
So begins the mission statement for one of Columbia, Missouri’s cultural icons: a self-proclaimed pizza dive known as Shakespeare’s Pizza.
People come from wide and far and close and narrow to line up to eat their pizza. No pasta. No burgers. No fried ravioli or stuff. Just pizza and a few salads and both Coke AND Pepsi.
What’s their secret? It probably won’t come as any surprise they have several … many of which have absolutely nothing to do with pizza.
Last night, they provided pizza for another client’s (Socket: a different cool company with a different cool story for a different cool day. Cool?) neighborhood party. Socket set up shop at a local park with games and music and a bounce house and other means of assorted funnery.
Two of Shakes Secrets: Socket advertised that pizza would be served from six to eight. Shakes started serving about fifteen minutes early and had the 200 pizzas ordered delivered in three flights rather than all at once.
That way, the pizza was always hot. If you were hungry ahead of the expected time (5:45), you got a piping hot slice, but if you showed up at 7:30, you didn’t get a lukewarm, chewy, 90-minute old slice. Yours was just was piping, bub.
Sure, it takes a little extra effort. Build a little extra effort into the price. That piping hot pizza’s marketing, friends. It’s a language that communicates to guests that Shakes rocks, and it communicates that Socket rocks, too.
Shakespeare’s helped improve Socket’s event and continued to reinforce the positive image of the business.
My partner, Roy H. Williams, recently told me that “advertising is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”
Often, the cheapest form of marketing is a delivering a remarkable product or experience.
Why not look through your systems, policies and procedures and see where you can ratchet up the awesome.
“It’s raising the anticipated price, stupid … and maybe the beer.”
Not unlike Quatro’s….a combination of a consistent advertising message and always exceeding expectations.
That’s exactly right for the purposes of this post, Joey. Exactly. Quattro’s consistency through the years should be studied and emulated.
Have you been to Shakespeare’s? Where the two diverge is in decor and what a lot of people call "culture."
To me, Quattro’s is a bit bland or most certainly unmemorable on the inside. Yet – the pizza’s always – always – top notch. I can’t recall have a disappointing meal there.
But, Shakespeare’s comes alive inside. It’s a very different atmosphere, and I contend that while people say they come back for the pizza, I think that subconsciously they live living amongst the clever, creative world of pirates that greets them inside its halls every time they return.
What are the defining characteristics of a company’s culture? How’s it different than a brand? Is it different?
And, maybe most importantly, does it matter?
These are the things that keep me up nights …