Question

PRODUCT/SERVICE ADVERTISING

David Gassner is General Manager for the Sky Inn in Miami. Helena Barneda is Restaurant and Food Services Manager for the Inn. She reports to David. Two years ago, Helena noticed a decline in room service business, the highest margin portion of her operation. This decline coincided with an increase in the national sales of pizza delivery and carryout firms as well as an increase in the number of empty pizza boxes from these firms being left in guest rooms in the Inn. Her immediate response was to install a pizza oven in the kitchen and offer room service pizza to guests. The effort met with modest success, though it was well below her expectations. Questionnaires completed by departing guests revealed a problem of product quality.

Focusing on this problem, Helena improved the Inn’s pizza until blind taste tests judged it at least equal in quality to the products of the two major pizza delivery competitors in Miami. Sales did not improve, convincing Helena that the problem was a perceived mismatch between the hotel’s image and guests’ expectations of pizza makers. Guests simply did not seem to believe that the traditional steak and seafood restaurant at the Inn could make a high-quality, authentic pizza. Based on this conclusion, Helena presented the following proposal to David:

“Sales of room service pizza are stagnant due to guests’ misperception that our product is lower in quality than that of competitors. This misperception is based on the belief that until we disassociate our pizza from the Sky Inn name. Therefore, to capture more room service pizza business, we should create a “Pizza Toscana” image for our guest room delivery service by:

• Preparing “Pizza Toscana” brochures for each guest room, complete with a phone number with a prefix different from that of Sky Inn. The number will reach a special phone in room service, which will be answered by the phrase “Pizza Toscana, authentic Italian pizza from old, family recipes”.

• Using special “Pizza Toscana” boxes for delivering room service pizza to guests.

• Issuing “Pizza Toscana” hats and jackets to room service personnel for use in pizza delivery. Room service waiters and waitresses will wear these garments to deliver pizza. They will change to their regular uniforms for other deliveries.”

How should David respond to this proposal?

Answer 1

The given case represents a classic challenge of building and managing an image of product or service. Since the blind taste surveys have rated the inn's pizza equal to the two major pizza makers in Miami, the problem is of perception management which has been rightly diagnosed by Helena.

David should accept the proposals made by Helena with following changes-

1. Avoid issuing pizza toscana hats and jackets to room service staff, in order to differentiate between pizza toscana brand and inn's other services.

2. Separating the pizza toscana business from the usual restaurant business of the inn by creating a seperate pizza toscana business division.

3. Endorsing the pizza toscana over social media and mainstream media.

4. Conducting promotional events using celebrity food industry experts to change brand perception towards pizza toscana.