Your client's ad
on restaurant takeout
Reach consumers when they are hungry for a quick meal
By Diego Vasquez
Oct 24, 2011
Advertisers have been targeting customers in restaurants with signs and giveaways for years, but they can also target those customers who do not dine in by sending the ads home with them.
Those ads might appear on pizza boxes, Chinese takeout containers or deli sandwich wraps, and they're essentially unavoidable.
The medium offers advertisers a chance to get surprisingly creative by distributing custom-written messages inside fortune cookies or pizza boxes that play audio when opened.
To find out how to get your client on takeout containers, read on.
This is one in a Media Life series on buying out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.
Fast Facts
What
Advertising on takeout food containers.
Who
Any out-of-home or guerrilla agency can set up takeout campaigns, and there are also companies that specialize in printing messages on pizza boxes.
How it works
Putting ads on takeout containers or pizza boxes is fairly straightforward, but the most effective campaigns often have an additional creative element.
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It could be a flier that includes coupons for a local business, a local sports team's game schedule, or a CD or DVD featuring a clip or episode of a new TV show.
Pizza boxes can also be outfitted with audio chips that play music when the box is opened, much like a talking greeting card.
A few years ago Pizza Hut boxes played a Jessica Simpson jingle to push a new product on Super Bowl Sunday. In a current campaign, boxes sponsored by TNT play the theme song of the TV show "Dallas" to promote its upcoming reboot of the primetime soap.
There are creative options at Chinese restaurants as well, including customized fortune cookies. The History channel recently used these to promote a show about Nostradamus.
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Advertisers can place logos or messages on chopsticks as well, either on the sticks themselves or the paper containers they're distributed in.
Markets
Takeout campaigns can be executed in any market.
Numbers
Three billion pizzas are sold annually in the U.S., according to the National Association of Pizzeria Operators. The industry trade Pizza Today says there are 70,000 pizzerias in the U.S., with 9,000 of those in New York. Pizzerias generate $38 billion in sales annually.
How it is measured
Advertisers can track how many pizza boxes, takeout boxes, fortune cookies, sandwich wraps, etc., are distributed. They can also track calls to action printed on takeout items such as web site visits and online sweepstakes entries.
What product categories work well
Recent or current takeout advertisers include entertainment companies such as TV networks and movie studios, auto, banking/financial and video games.
Demographics
Advertisers can target by demographic based on zip code of the area near the restaurant.
For example, a TV network looking to target Hispanics could place pizza boxes at stores in zip codes that are a minimum 40 percent Latino.
Making the buy
Lead time is typically three to four weeks, including production, although unique items may take up to eight weeks.
Pricing varies. Pizza boxes can range from 20 cents to 50 cents per box, while distributing 100,000 fortune cookies costs $12,000. Distribution of 50,000 takeout boxes runs around $15,000.
Who’s already been on takeout containers
Recent brands that have advertised using takeout containers include History, A&E, Rockstar games, Showtime, Toyota, Tabasco, NBC, ABC.
What they’re saying
"It's unique because it's delivered into an intimate environment with little or no clutter. The intimate thing is there's very little distraction. It's in the environment for 40 minutes to an hour, and maybe longer on college campuses. You can also do a topper or flier, and [consumers] take it off the box so the length of time you're exposed to the message is increased." –
Jon Nelson, national sales director at Mangia Media
Web site info
Brite Media Group
http://britemg.com
Mangia Media
http://www.mangiamedia.com
GoGorilla Media
http://gogorillaadvertising.com
Media Pizza Box
http://www.mediapizzabox.com
Pizza Ads
http://pizzaads.com
Encompass Media
http://www.encompassmediagroup.com
PromoMedia Concepts
http://promocup.com
EMC Outdoor
http://www.emcoutdoor.com/pizza_box_ads.htm
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