Papa Johns Costly Marketing Disaster
Papa Johns is trying to avert a marketing disaster in NE Ohio.
A little background info: In the first round of the NBA playoffs the Cleveland Cavaliers faced the Washington Wizards. The Cavs have bumped the Wizards from the playoffs the past couple of years, and the Wizards didn’t want that to happen again. Their game plan was to aggressively foul LeBron James every time he went to the basket. Some of theose fouls were very aggressive,a nd as the series went on James did a bit of complaining.
Papa Johns pizza franchises in the Washington area used this as a marketing tool by giving away free t-shirts with the Papa John logo. The t-shirts were emblazoned with the word “CRYBABY” and the number 23 (James’ jersey number).
While it may have been good in the Washington market, it destroyed Papa Johns in the Cleveland market (and with Cavs fans nationwide). Like him or not, LeBron James is becoming a basketball icon with a fan base the reaches worldwide.
In order to win back fans in NE Ohio, Papa Johns is offereing a large, 1-topping pizza for 23-cents. No I don’t know how much it costs to make a Papa John’s pizza, but my guess is that it’s more than $0.23. Papa John’s is predicting a 900% increase in pizza sales for this one-day sale.
This ends up being a pretty expensive way to try and repair damage for a dumb marketing ploy that backfired.
