“Young At Heart”: Toppers Pizza and the advantages of having a brand that rocks

“Everyone at Toppers Pizza* is young at heart” sums up the environment of the Whitewater, WI based pizza brand. While many brands might shy away from risqué branding and marketing, Toppers Pizza embraces living on the edge.

If you need an example of this unique culture, simply look at the franchising video that Toppers Pizza CEO and founder Scott Gittrich created with his staff. The video starts with Scott speaking directly to the camera dressed in a business suite. 20 seconds into the video, Gittrich stands up and reveals that he is wearing Zubaz, the popular zebra sweatpants that everyone might remember from the 90s.

Many brands use their franchising page to try and familiarize perspective franchisees with the brand’s concept and culture. While Toppers Pizza is no exception to his model, the franchising page also highlights the creativity of the brand, the unique culture and explains how the brand explores the untapped demographic of 18-34 year olds. “We focus our communication on 18-34 year old,” said Gittrich. “But our focus does not mean that we consider those our only customers, far from it. In fact, many of our highest volume restaurants are metropolitan, suburban, or small town locations that are only represented by the demographic in an average way.” Toppers Pizza offers a great product And yet, what sets Toppers Pizza apart from competition is the company’s strategic marketing. Gittrich understands the power of brand culture and truly embraces the personality of the brand. “We are very successful serving the full range of pizza eating demographics, but our personality is focused. Our personality is appealing to a wider range of demographics.” Toppers  keeps its brand voice when interacting with their fanatical following on social media. As stated in the franchising video, Toppers continually researches their fan base, 18-34 demographic, to find out their core interests. Through this, the brand understands the power of social media within their targeted demographic. According to OnlineSchools.org, 48% of 18-34 year olds check their Facebook account as soon as they wake up. Utilizing this information, Toppers Pizza has been able to continue the interaction with their fan base and truly puts the social in social media. For example, Toppers recently ran a Facebook competition in which fans drew creative pictures on the pizza delivery box. Toppers posted the pictures and had fans vote on which design is the best. The winner of the competition will have their “Box Art” photo featured as the company’s profile Cover Photo. By remaining interactive with customers, Toppers has been able to further spread “Toppers Nation”. Further, the uniqueness of the brand can be very appealing to prospective franchisees. When looking for a business concept, it is important to find that brand that goes that extra mile to ensure success amongst the rest of the other concepts. Toppers Pizza recognizes that the brand’s culture “is all about fit. It excludes many people, and it attracts others, and that’s a good thing,” as Gittrich puts it. “By the time people come to Discovery Day, they get who we are and what we are doing. They rightly think that we will expect a lot and give a lot.” Summed up in once sentence, Gittrich explains Toppers culture as “a group of driven, fun, energetic, values-orientated pizza people building a special company together by being better than the bland, fast food pizza brands that dominate the market today.” “We have the advantage of just ‘being ourselves’. Those massive corporate brands that have a lot of consultants telling them who to be, how to talk and what advantages they will get from it are screwed! When you are who you are, it’s true.” by Chris Powills