Pizza Box Top Advertising

The advertisement is printed on pizza boxes (or pizza toppers) and shipped to the pizzerias that the advertiser selected. The advertising pizza venues distribute to the consumers locally or they deliver at their homes. These venues are recognized pizza chains, so the advertiser has exposure to reputable brands. The pizza box ads get delivered in the hands of the consumers at their homes reaching on average 45 min of brand exposure. Sometimes the consumer leaves the pizza in the fridge generating additional exposure. On average, each Pizza Box Advertising venue delivers 2,000 pizza box ads per month with an estimate 1.8M impressions/month.

There are few reasons why marketers would choose Pizza Box Advertising instead of other traditional media vehicles:

High Brand Recall

Consumers are overwhelmed with digital ads that they see for a fraction of second and barely remember them. The attention span for digital ads is minimal to make them remember. The pizza box ads create a surprise effect making it more memorable. Studies show that this type of ads can evoke an 80% recall rate (8 out of 10 households individuals remember to see an ad on pizza boxes)

Low Cost

The budget used to place a 1 billboard on a high traffic highway for 1 month can be re-allocated to distribute 60,000 pizza boxes. This is sufficient to cover all households of a small town in the USA.

High Return on Advertising Spend

The average ROI is 2.5X. This means, for every 1 dollar the advertiser invested in a pizza advertising campaign, they received at least additional 2.5 dollars of sales.

The unconventional and unexpected nature of this type of advertising enables better perception and assimilation of the message

The ad is placed on the center of the box generating guaranteed impressions. Sometimes the consumer leaves the pizza in the fridge generating additional exposure and more impressions

On average, each pizza venue delivers 2,000 ads per month with an estimate 1.8M impressions/month. This is 4x more impressions than a freeway billboard for 3-5 times less costs

Additionally, you can use coupons to boost sales and track the ROI of the advertising spend.

Cost comparison

The cost of Pizza Box Marketing depends on the total quantities/units to be produced, the complexity of the creative/design, the distribution location and shipping costs. By selecting the right agency, the unit cost of a pizza box might vary between $0.80-1.50 and the pizza toppers $0.30-0.60 per unit.

Let’s now compare it with the current outdated advertising methods:

Billboards

The costs of billboards typically depend on the creative, format, size, location and demographics. It is not viable to calculate the number of impressions since billboard companies cannot precisely identify how many people are looking at the billboard – usually these are guesstimates based on the traffic of the area. Traditional billboards cost $14,000-20,000/month in larger markets.

Now let’s put it into the comparison perspective:

Using the same budget of 1 billboard during 1 month in a larger market, the advertiser can reach approximately 60,000 households with a personalized message on your pizza toppers. This is a large reach impact that could cover every household in a small city.

What would you prefer: paying for a billboard that is not personalized and not even noticed by distracted drivers or reaching 60,000 households that will literally grab your ad in their hands?

Direct Mail

Direct Mail is another outdated tactic. The cost of direct mail as postcards are approximately $0.20-0.40 per unit. This is at similar price range as a pizza toppers.

Now let’s put it into the comparison perspective:

Approximately 60% of the postcards or letters go straight to the garbage and don’t even get noticed while 100% of the consumers must see your pizza box ads.  This brings the ‘’cost per visualization’’ of post cards 2x higher than Pizza Box Advertising.

Calculating the Return on Investment of Pizza Box Marketing

Let’s assume that you are the Marketing Manager of a local movie theater. The recent pandemic caused you a drastic business harm since the past months most Americans were forced to stay home quarantined. Now that your activities are back to normal you must recover the lost sales with more a creative approach.

You start planning a campaign to distribute 20,000 pizza toppers using local pizzerias. The pizza box ads will include a free popcorn in case they purchase a movie ticket.

Typical conversion rates of Pizza Box Marketing range between 4-6%. This percentage will depend on how attractive the offer is and how compelling the artwork is. Let’s assume for this case a 5% client conversion.

Audience Reach: 20,000 toppers

Converted clients (5%): 1,000 new customers

Sales price of the ticket: $15

Incremental sales (after the campaign): $15,000

Cost of the ads campaign: $6,000

Return on the Pizza Box Advertising investment: 2.5x.

Conclusion: for every 1 dollar you invested in a door hanger campaign, you received at least additional 2.5 dollars of sales.

Adzze offers ad placement on pizza boxes nationally. We work with a network that will enable you to place your ads in the hands of the consumers.

  Contact us to learn more about our Pizza Box Top Advertising program