• by Larissa Faw , September 10, 2015

Johnny's Pizza House is an iconic Louisiana brand best known for its "sweep the kitchen" pies that feature more than 11 toppings. Now, the pizza chain is undergoing its first rebrand in its 50-year history as the company embarks on an aggressive push toward increasing franchise sales by expanding beyond Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas.  

Developed by agency iris, the initiative includes a new logo, identity, packaging and menu system all based on the brand’s roots based on community, sharing, and its regionally-inspired pizza.  

As part of this rebrand, Johnny's is introducing a new tagline, "Let's Share A Slice" to reflect the family-oriented sentiment that founder Johnny Huntsman embodied when he opened his first store in Monroe, Louisiana with $5,000 just after graduating college. This message stands in contrast to its previous generic "Taste the Best" tagline that really didn't differentiate it from competitors.  

One unique challenge in this rebrand centered around its operating structure. Since establishing its Employee Stock Ownership Plan in 2000, the employees of Johnny's Pizza House are majority owners. "Our goal since has been to financially enrich current and future employee-owners, and to do so, we needed to establish a plan that would provide continuous and sustainable growth for the company. That meant expanding into markets outside of Northern Louisiana where our brand was not known," stated Melvin DeLacerda, President of Johnny's Pizza House. 

"To provide the best chance of success in these new markets, we felt it was vital to take a look at ourselves to see how we could improve our brand and make it more appealing to new customers.” 

Still, this model meant many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. Getting buy-in from a majority of decision-makers meant the agency had to work with dozens of people instead of a core group, says Joseph Szala, Senior Creative, iris, Atlanta. "However, we believed that by finding a common-ground and a shared passion, buy-in would be much easier. That common ground was found in the personality and goodwill upon which Johnny Huntsman built his pizza brand. Pulling that into a brand strategy and reason for being, aka a Passionate Purpose, was relatively easy when we found it already existed, but hadn’t been called out."