Rapidly Growing Pizza Franchise Goes Vertical with the Unofficial Tallest Pizza in the World
In an ongoing battle to create an alternative to the uneducated big pizza chain’s bland menus,
Toppers Pizza, the 28-unit eclectic pizza delivery franchise, has finally created “the pizza all other pizzas look up to.” Its name? The Tall Boy.
“The Tall Boy is a continuation of our taste domination and represents the best of our product offerings,” said Scott Iversen, Director of Marketing for
Toppers Pizza. “Customers are constantly craving our Topperstix—then one day it suddenly occurred to us: Topperstix as the base of our pizzas.”
Since its invention, pizza has only gone in one direction—down. Until now. The Tall Boy puts other thick crust pizzas to shame, standing above the competition and combining the cheesy, garlicky, thick crust of Topperstix with any of its 50+ toppings or House Pizza ingredients.
“When we added the toppings, we noticed that this was a seriously tall pizza,” said Iversen. “It doesn’t dip down in the middle like other thick crust or pan fried pizzas do. It stays thick the whole way through. Naming it The Tall Boy was a no-brainer.”
The Tall Boy is the latest product launched under
Toppers new “Spank Your Buds” tagline, a positioning statement that has become
Toppers’ official platform for the kinds of ongoing marketing messages that give their fanatical fans the unique experience they’ve come to expect: fun, irreverent, and engaging, with some seriously great-tasting food.
“Our new tagline just reinforces what our fans have been telling us since our inception,” said Iversen. “Our food tastes better than the national guys, and now we’ve created a tagline that says that, Toppers-style.”
In 2009, the face of the pizza industry frowned, with industry-wide patterns of sluggish sales and stunted growth.
Toppers Pizza, however, not only dodged the slowdown but actually increased their average unit volumes and system-wide sales with five new units and 18 new contracts. While the big chains go hungry,
Toppers chows down on an ever-growing slice of the $40-plus-billlion pizza industry pie.
But how?
“The reason for our success is simple: we are not one of the ‘Wal-Marts’ of the industry. The big chains have lost identity and brand connection,” said Scott Gittrich, founder and CEO of
Toppers Pizza. “Our customers, on the other hand, are fanatical about our brand. Our quirkiness and edginess have given us character, thus we’ve been able grow by forming strong bonds with an untapped national demographic – the 18-34-year olds.”
