• by Thom Forbes , November 11, 2014

With its slice of the pie still dominant but declining, Pizza Hut yesterday announced what the newly promoted David Gibbs called “one of the biggest moves we’ve ever made in our history.” Gibbs, the president of Pizza Hut, U.S., who will become global CEO of the Yum Brands subsidiary on Jan. 1, hosted a gathering of the media yesterday to announce a new menu starting Nov. 19, along with an overhaul of its marketing.

“Today's consumer is more adventuresome when it comes to flavors and ingredients,” Gibbs says, reports Yahoo Finance’s Chris Nichols. And, of course, “It always starts with the customer, the consumer, and what's happening with them,” as CMO Carrie Walsh points out. “What are they looking for in food? And ultimately what we saw is America's tastes are changing.”

Crusty New York style thin-crust pizza purists — for whom gently ladled marinara, generously tossed mozzarella and maybe five legitimate toppings in the whole world (six if you include anchovies) are all you need for the perfect pie — might want to skip a few paragraphs down to where we discuss the “massive brand overhaul” and details such details as the new logo and uniform.

For those who are more accepting of the evolution of the pizza pie — which really wasn’t invented on Arthur Avenue, after all — Pizza Hut’s “Flavor of Now” rebranding takes five “new ingredients,” six “bold sauces,” and a bevy of “crust flavors” and “sauce drizzles” to create 11 new “mind blowing” concoctions with trademarked names such as Old Fashioned Meatbrawl and Sweet Sriracha Dynamite.

Customers can also “play mad scientist,” with “the freedom to make pies with honey Sriracha sauce or add curry flavor to the crusts,” according to the Associated Press. In doing so, it’s “turning to a growing trend in the industry — giving people greater flexibility to tailor orders exactly to their tastes,” Candice Choi observes. “The popularity of places like Chipotle that let people select toppings has prompted a variety of chains to play up their own customization options.”

The chain is also “changing its logo, swapping out uniforms — polo and black pants — for jeans and a T-shirt, and revamping its Web site,” Gail Sullivan reports in the Washington Post, which offers a rather funereal lede for the chain of 6,300 extant domestic outlets (13,300 all told in 88 countries).

“Pizza Hut’s recognizable roof is everywhere,” Sullivan writes. “Only these days, the iconic, red-shingled trapezoid often tops other businesses that have replaced shuttered Pizza Huts: a funeral home, a police station, a couple of churches and an adult toy store, to name a few.”

Time’s Josh Sanburn concludes that the new flavors taste better than they sound. “The Cock-a-Doodle Bacon. Why?” he asks. But, “spread with a creamy garlic parmesan sauce topped with grilled chicken and bacon,” it’s a “riff on Alfredo … rich enough that you don’t miss the marinara.”

Ditto for the Cherry Pepper Bombshell, although it could do without the shower of spinach on top of the cherry peppers and balsamic drizzle that do go well with the salami. And they could leave it off the Pretzel Piggy, too, as far as Sanburn is concerned, which has the same creamy garlic parmesan sauce as the Cock-a-Doodle. 

“The chain is also rolling out its Skinny Slice Pizza, which is made with a thinner version of the hand-tossed crust and comes in five varieties such as The Skinny Club, with garlic parmesan sauce, smoked ham, tomatoes and fresh spinach,” reports Gina Pace in the New York Daily News. “All Skinny Slice Pizzas have 250 calories or less per slice.”

“Pizza Hut has long been the largest player in the pizza space, but its margin of dominance is shrinking,” reports the Dallas Morning News’ Karen Robinson-Jacobs. “In 2008 it commanded nearly 19% of the pizza segment, compared with 10% for Domino’s, the No. 2 player,” according to Technomic data.

“In 2013, Pizza Hut had a 16.7% market share, while Little Caesar’s, which appeals largely to value-conscious consumers, had gained 2 percentage points to claim 8.8% of the market. Domino’s had 11.1%, according to Technomic,” Robinson-Jacobs writes.

“To announce the change, the chain will launch its largest-ever advertising campaign,” Bruce Horovitz reports in USA Today, with “The Flavor of Now” tagline. Walsh would not reveal any details but allowed that “there's even a possibility that the chain, which hasn't advertised during a Super Bowl in 15 years, is considering such a move for the upcoming big game on Feb. 1.”

“We're looking,” says Walsh. “This change deserves a big statement.”

It will also demand a lot of computational ability from its consumers. Also according to Walsh, Nichols reports, “there are over 2 billion combinations of pizzas” that the adventuresome diner will “be able to access.”