BOSTON PIZZA COMPREHENSIVE CASE SP Pizza Burgers, Boneless Wings, and Other Foodie Game Changers Conventional marketing wisdom, and theory, would suggest that you don't create products just to create products. Every- thing must be calculated; there must be demand from a known and defined market; and, most importantly, that demand must be convertible into profit. But if you're Boston Pizza and you're competing for market in the casual dining space, you sometimes have to think, and act-outside the box. Of course, when your core product lends itself so well to fun-food creativity, it tends to take some of the risk out of the equation. In 2014, after paving the way with such inno- vative menu offerings as the Pizza Burger, BP took the concept of pizza and turned it inside out. With its cleverly named "Pizza Game Changers" campaign, Canada's leading family dining chain introduced its own new plays on pizza-like the Pizza Taco, Pizza Burger Sliders, and the, wait for it, Candied Bacon Carrot Cake-and then turned product development over to its customers. As Joanne Forrester, vice-president of marketing, declared at the launch, "The Pizza Game Changers campaign allows Canadians to not only explore our limit-pushing new menu items and pizza innovations, but to have the opportunity to take the reins and tell us what pizza innovation they'd like to see next." The campaign was a customer engagement and media hit, with global news coverage and viral social media attention doing more to enhance the "family fun" part of BP's brand than to increase sales. The winning game-changing idea? The pizza cake-an over-the- top multilayered round "cake" made entirely of pizza. Although the pizza cake never made it to BP's menu, it was made and served as a prize in a later Boston Pizza contest. So while marketing theory and practical business process do require research and due diligence in order to minimize risk and maximize success, particularly with new prod- uct launches, sometimes unconventional thinking is required to reinforce what the brand stands for QUESTIONS 1. What was the goal of BP's "Pizza Game Changers" campaign: to sell pizzas or to build brand reputation? Support your response. 2. Despite the suggestion that the decision to add, say, Pizza Tacos to the BP menu was made spontaneously, in the name of "fun," it's probably more realistic to assume that there was some adherence to the new-product development process. At what stage in the process do you think the Pizza Taco was found to have potential where other ideas did not? BOSTON PIZZA COMPREHENSIVE CASE SP Pizza Burgers, Boneless Wings, and Other Foodie Game Changers Conventional marketing wisdom, and theory, would suggest that you don't create products just to create products. Every- thing must be calculated; there must be demand from a known and defined market; and, most importantly, that demand must be convertible into profit. But if you're Boston Pizza and you're competing for market in the casual dining space, you sometimes have to think, and act-outside the box. Of course, when your core product lends itself so well to fun-food creativity, it tends to take some of the risk out of the equation. In 2014, after paving the way with such inno- vative menu offerings as the Pizza Burger, BP took the concept of pizza and turned it inside out. With its cleverly named "Pizza Game Changers" campaign, Canada's leading family dining chain introduced its own new plays on pizza-like the Pizza Taco, Pizza Burger Sliders, and the, wait for it, Candied Bacon Carrot Cake-and then turned product development over to its customers. As Joanne Forrester, vice-president of marketing, declared at the launch, "The Pizza Game Changers campaign allows Canadians to not only explore our limit-pushing new menu items and pizza innovations, but to have the opportunity to take the reins and tell us what pizza innovation they'd like to see next." The campaign was a customer engagement and media hit, with global news coverage and viral social media attention doing more to enhance the "family fun" part of BP's brand than to increase sales. The winning game-changing idea? The pizza cake-an over-the- top multilayered round "cake" made entirely of pizza. Although the pizza cake never made it to BP's menu, it was made and served as a prize in a later Boston Pizza contest. So while marketing theory and practical business process do require research and due diligence in order to minimize risk and maximize success, particularly with new prod- uct launches, sometimes unconventional thinking is required to reinforce what the brand stands for QUESTIONS 1. What was the goal of BP's "Pizza Game Changers" campaign: to sell pizzas or to build brand reputation? Support your response. 2. Despite the suggestion that the decision to add, say, Pizza Tacos to the BP menu was made spontaneously, in the name of "fun," it's probably more realistic to assume that there was some adherence to the new-product development process. At what stage in the process do you think the Pizza Taco was found to have potential where other ideas did not