LEXINGTON Ky. Facing giant Pizza Hut’s new pasta line, as well as the challenging overall economic environment, quick-service noodle seller Fazoli’s has launched a giveaway campaign to build awareness and traffic.
The 264-unit, Lexington-based chain on Monday unveiled its “Italian Revolution” marketing endeavor calling for the “overthrow of overpriced Italian” foods. It features an Internet microsite at www.freespaghetti.com, a Web coupon for a spaghetti dish that changes each week for six weeks and is free when ordered with a small beverage, and a YouTube.com spoof newsreel video.
The marketing initiative also draws on an associated Facebook.com social networking website page. But beyond online activities, the effort incorporates humorous picket signs outside Fazoli’s restaurants, where guests’ parked vehicles may be subject to “splatting,” or having tomato-shaped stickers with coupons placed on their windshields, organizers said.
“With unpopular corporate bailouts, a steady stream of bad economic news and food prices going up, we decided it's high time somebody gave American consumers a way to protest,” said Carl Howard, Fazoli's president and chief executive. “So we created an Italian revolution that is fun and gives guests what they really need right now -- a break from all the anxiety, and free spaghetti.”
Officials at Fazoli’s estimated that the chain might give away up to 2.7 million pounds of spaghetti during the promotion.
Fazoli’s has seen its unit count shrink by about a third over the past six years. Last year it saw Dallas-based Pizza Hut, which boasts 7,500 U.S. units, add a line of Tuscani Pastas that parent company Yum! Brands Inc. said generates $500 million in sales annually.
Fazoli's, which had estimated systemwide sales of about $314 million for the fiscal year ended in March 2008, is owned by Sun Capital Partners Inc.