When Peter Biro, the franchiser opening up a Naked Pizza in the northeast told me they liked to refer to themselves as the social media company who also sells pizza – even he laughed at the corniness of it. But as he continued to explain their philosophy, as well as their unique way of collecting data on customers, it became a lot less corny.
Biro started in the franchising business with Five Guys, a successful burger chain, which is where he began to learn the power of word of mouth for the fast food business. Biro told me he believed that Naked Pizza has the ability to “to transform the way fast food restaurants interact with the public.” They are doing this in a few ways; studying trends, engaging, using new technologies and joining in the entrepreneurial community.
One of the most unique, a savvy things Naked Pizza does is study internal trends within restaurants. Right now the Brighton location has an impressive IT infrastructure that tracks all orders, online and off. This data analyzes trends in consumer behavior such as; ordering habits by time of day, spending habits online vs offline, frequency of orders of types of pizza, as well as other valuable data. This information is displayed inside the store on a monitor throughout the day.
One interesting piece of data Biro was able to tell me after only a few days of orders in Brighton is that online orders cost on average 20% more then offline orders. Insights like this can change how restaurants like Naked Pizza market to their customers by giving incentives to customers who order online.
Naked Pizza is one of the only fast food businesses that ‘get it’ in terms of online engagement. In 2009 they were one of the earliest success stories on Twitter in terms of ROI, with their first Twitter only promotion on April 23 that resulted in 15% of total sales, 90% of those being new customers. Nationally, they have continued to maintain an active social presence, using Twitter especially to engage local influencer’s and drive sales on a regular basis
On a local scale, Biro believes this success should continue, calling social media the linchpin of Naked Pizza. Biro went on to explain to me that he believes, “social media is where brands are going to be built,” and “if your brand doesn’t work with social media, it is going to die off.”
While Naked Pizza has built a business on services like Twitter and Facebook, they know they cannot stop there, and have already started using newer technologies like QR as part of traditional advertising campaigns in Boston. To the right is an example of an ad in Coolidge Corner with their QR code getting residents ready for their next opening at that location.
One more thing Biro explained to me was part of their strategy for really supplanting themselves in the Boston area is being part of the entrepreneurial community. He cited two people in particular he thought were real leaders in Boston, Joanne Chang of Myers & Chang and Flour Bakery, and John Pepper (@BolocoCEO). If he plans to follow in their footsteps in any way, he is bound for success in the Boston community.
