Pizza Time, or Hypothermia Time?
January 6, 2009 by Katherine Liew
Filed under Marketing
In case you haven’t already been shocked by the treatment of employees in Sean Kelly’s Franchisees from Hell post, listen to this: the owners of Pizza Time in Lacey, WA have made their employees work without heating in the middle of winter after one of the company’s furnaces was left on overnight.
The franchisee’s response: “If you don’t want to work here quit, otherwise shut up and do your job. The next person I hear complaining is off for two weeks. We don’t have heat!! You guys screwed up, not us. You want to blame someone, look in the mirror.”
The company’s response: …
The community’s response: We don’t want your pizza anymore.
This brand is in trouble – but it created these problems a long time ago.
Lacey is a small community, and once businesses get a bad reputation they’re done. Word has also spread beyond Lacey through the news and the blogosphere, tarring the reputation of Pizza Time’s other branches.
But wait, you say, wasn’t it only the owners of the Lacey store that were acting dubiously?
No – this incident shows much deeper problems. It shows that the corporate headquarters of Pizza Time have not set down any policies on basic treatment of employees (or on PR for that matter). Their lack of response to the situation shows that they won’t step in when their franchisees are in trouble or are causing damage to the brand.
A company’s identity is one of the strongest parts of its brand. What does it say about a company if its employees hate it? Is it smart to make the people who are the face of your brand hate it?
Remove, Rebrand, Reform or..?
Pizza Time has a few options…
Remove the troublesome elements and try to keep it quiet. This is what the company HAS done, and many others have tried previously. However, this doesn’t work, especially today when negative word of mouth travels like wildfire.
Rebrand the company and hope that everyone forgets. Not a good way to treat your customers, and also expensive, but a rebrand with revised company policies could be something to think about in the future.
Reform the company – quickly issue an apology, compensate the employees and show that the company is actively working on solving the problem. This would be the smartest course of action for Pizza Time to take, like Nike did with their child labour scandal.
It’s difficult to turn a problem into an advantage, but another course of action is to do just that. Arizona’s ‘Heart Attack Cafe‘ has turned the health issues in burgers, usually considered a disadvantage, into their main selling point. Minus 5 has made its fortune operating bars made out of ice.
By reforming with a sense of humour and a bit of rebranding, Pizza Time could come out of this strongly – the name ‘Penguin Pizza’ comes to mind. They could start raising money for polar bears. Come out with a line of icecream pizzas.
But most importantly, they need to make it clear that they are going to deal with the problem or their reputation will suffer even further.
Excellent post, Katherine.
I think all three options should be implemented.
Though, as a franchise they are contractually unable to change their name from Pizza Time. However, they could rebrand to a degree by bringing in new management, allowing Corporate to run the store for a period, sell to new owners, etc.
Unfortunately, this is not the first PR nightmare for this little store. These owners took it over shortly after a drunken pizza driver employee killed a 42 year old father of 4… while delivering pizzas(!)
Can brands be cursed?
Thanks for the link & contribution!
Sean from FranchisePick.com
As I understand it, 1) they spent too much on heating and 2) the ovens suck heat out the exhaust.
Why don’t they install a heat exchanger in the oven exhaust flue? It seems like it would pay for itself in short order.