Tag: pizza hut

Pizza Hut Created A Pair Of Connected Sneakers That You Can Order Pizza With

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Pizza hut has taken the one-click ordering concept to new territories with a pair of bluetooth-enabled sneakers that you can order pizza from. Dubbed Pie Tops, the shoe essentially has an Amazon Dash-like button hidden on the tongue, which people can click to initiate the default order that they have configured with their Pizza Hut mobile app.

What Brands Need To Do
While this is clearly a marketing stunt, Pizza Hut’s pizza-ordering sneakers demonstrate how IoT technologies have made it possible to expand customer touchpoint beyond screens. It points to a future where billions of connected devices, be it your home appliances or the public amenities, will become capable of such ecommerce features. In fact, Visa has already struck a partnership with IBM to fast track the development of the so-called “IoT commerce,” i.e. the kind of automated digital transactions initiated by connected devices according to preset, contextual triggers. For brands, this means it is time to start considering developing an IoT strategy and figure out how connected devices can expand your sales or distribution channel.

 

Source: Engadget

Header image courtesy of Pizza Hut’s YouTube

Pizza Hut Sponsors Yahoo’s Fantasy Sports Game In Super Bowl Push

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
As part of its multi-channel Super Bowl campaign, Pizza has launched a sponsored fantasy sports game on Yahoo Sports. Dubbed “Squares Pick’em,” the game lets football fans use Pizza Hut-themed grids to compete with friends and family and “score” the Super Bowl matchup. To promote this sponsored game, the pizza chain also bought display, email, and search ads on Yahoo.

What Brands Need To Do
This is the latest example of brands branching out into digital platforms with sponsored or branded content in order to stay engaged with consumers. The company has sponsored ESPN fantasy football for several years, but reportedly decided to branch out to Yahoo Sports to reach a bigger audience. The combined Yahoo Sports-NBC Sports Network had 58.7 million unique visitors in the US on desktop and mobile in December, according to comScore. Fantasy sports is a fast-growing area that more brands looking to capture sports fans should explore.

 

Source: AdExchange

You Can Now Ask Alexa And Google Assistant To Order Pizza

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Alexa and Google Assistant both added “pizza-ordering” to their growing repertoire of capabilities this week as two national pizza chains launched support for the two AI-powered, voice-based digital assistant services. Amazon Echo users can now activate the Pizza Hut skill to access their favorite menu items and previous orders for a convenient reorder, whereas people using Google Home can order their pizzas from Domino’s by logging into their Domino’s profiles. Besides, Google Home also added several new functions to let users control Netflix playback or access information on CNN and WebMD.

What Brands Should Do
Domino’s is no stranger to getting its service on emerging conversational platforms, as the company launched a branded Alexa skill in February and created a pizza-ordering chatbot on Facebook Messenger this August. As more and more consumers become addressable via these voice-based smart home devices, it is up to brands to take the initiative to explore the shifting paradigm of brand-customer interactions they bring and find an authentic brand voice in order to connect with consumers. For more actionable suggestions on this topic, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Engadget & TechCrunch

 

Here Come The Pizza Hut And Whole Foods Chatbots

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Another day, another crop of branded chatbots pop up on Facebook Messenger. Pizza Hut customers can now ask a chatbot to order a pizza and, once signed in with their Pizza Hut accounts, check their past purchases. In addition, the Pizza Hut bot will also be available via Twitter DM. For people who wish to eat healthier, Whole Foods is developing a Messenger bot that will respond with curated recipes related to keywords and emojis users send. Both chatbots are built with the Conversable platform and were unveiled at the VentureBeat MobileBeat conference on Wednesday.

Why Brands Should Care
These two chatbots are the latest additions to a growing list of branded bots as companies seek to connect with consumers on popular messaging apps. As we noted in our Medium post on branded chatbots, they are great for handling basic customer service and other single-focus tasks. Both of these new chatbots adhere to that principle, focusing on ordering and dispensing recipes, respectively. With more and more smartphone users opting to communicate via messaging apps, it is time for brands to consider developing chatbots in order to reach prospective customers.

The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

Source: AdWeek

Pizza Hut To Let You Order And Pay For Pizza With Your Car

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: VentureBeat

Pizza Hut, along with Visa and Accenture, announced at Mobile World Congress that they are working together to explore mobile and on-the-road purchases in connected cars. The trial plans to include a new Interactive Voice Control (IVR) feature that will let you talk to your car to place your order, while Visa Checkout, Visa’s online payment service, will let users make in-car payments seamlessly. Moreover, beacon technology will also be deployed at Pizza Hut restaurants to alert staff when the customer has arrived and is ready to pick up the order. If this works, the drive-thru of the future will be very efficient.

Update 3/5/2015: Not to be outdone, Domino’s is developing an ordering app on wearables to allow customers to place pizza orders from their Android Wear and Pebble smartwatches.

Ordering Pizza On Xbox? Why Not!

Posted on by Lab Team

The day you have been waiting for is here. You can now order pizza through Xbox Live alleviating your need to ever leave the couch. The new partnership between Pizza Hut and Xbox brings a dedicated app that lets users build, purchase and share your pizza order using voice commands, gesture control or the controller. While the app may sounds a little odd, it is the first of its kind to enable physical purchases within the platform. Time will tell if Xbox commerce will gain some traction or if people will simply rely on mobile devices.