On Super Bowl Sunday, Pizza Hut will debut a new commercial featuring fan-submitted videos for the "Hut! Hut! Hut!" commercial contest. The company will also be waiting for someone on the field to actually say the magic word -- because once a Super Bowl participant says "hut," Pizza Hut will unveil its next big "pizza innovation."
If you think the connection between the two "huts" is kind of nebulous, you're not alone.
That said, Gut Check loves us some pizza, and we loves us some innovation. (God help us, we've been hoping for Cup o' Pizza damn near all our life.)
So we got Pizza Hut spokesman Doug Terfehr on the blower and requested that he spill the beans.
Tight-lipped fella, that Terfehr.
"I can tell you it's not a side item," Terfehr says. "It's a whole new look at pizza and the way we share and enjoy pizza. We did a ton of testing on this product, and once people got their hands on it, they were really excited."
Terfehr let slip that Pizza Hut employees had to go through special training in preparation for the new product, and that it will not be a limited-time offer). The new item will reference in some way the location of this year's Super Bowl: New Orleans, a.k.a The Big Easy.
Emphasis on BIG and EASY, says Terfehr.
On February 5, Pizza Hut will give away free samples of the new product via carryout or dine-in from 4 to 7 p.m. (in honor of Superbowl XLVII -- get it?).
"We've had so much fun celebrating all the Huts with our fans this year that this was the best way we could say thank you for such a great season," Kurt Kane, Pizza Hut CMO proclaims in a press release. "Anyone can give away a pizza, but not just anyone can offer up a new product that's a true category breakthrough."
What could it be? Gut Check muses aloud about pizza-flavored shots, but Terfehr assures us that ain't it.
Your guess, obviously, is as good as ours.
