Student Name: Varsha Malviya

Student ID: 657350765

Assignment: Boston Pizza Case - Page 308, Question 1 & 2
Date: 1 November 2019

Q1. What was the goal of BP’s “Pizza Game Changers” campaign to sell pizzas or to build
brand reputation? Support your response.

Answer: BP’s “Pizza Game Changers” campaign was more focused on enhancing their brand
reputation through customer engagement rather than just increasing their sales figures. The
company involved Canadian families for generating innovative ideas on their pizza menu
options and made the consumers feel more connected to the brand by considering their
recommendations and future expectations on BP’s menu. This initiative caught global news
& social media attention and was highly acclaimed for its family fun filled customer
experience.

Q2. Despite the suggestion that the decision to add, say, Pizza Tacos to the BP menu was
made spontaneously, in the name of “fun”, it’s probably more realistic to assume that there
was some adherence to the new-product development process. At what stage in the process
do you think the Pizza Taco was found to have potential where other ideas did not?

Answer: To launch any new product in the market requires adequate research to better
understand the expectations of the consumers and competitors’ strategies. Companies need to
plan a systematic and strong consumer driven new-product development process. The process
must include the following steps:
1. Idea generation
2. Idea screening
3. Concept development and testing
4. Marketing strategy development
5. Business analysis
6. Product development
7. Test marketing
8. Commercialization (Marketing, An Introduction, Armstrong, Kotler, Trifts, Buchwitz,
5th edition, p. 285)
Assuming that the Boston Pizza would have adhered the new-product development process,
the “Pizza Game Changers” campaign involved the first two steps of “Idea generation” where
BP itself and BP’s customers contributed innovative ideas on multiple products for pizza
menu. The next stage “Idea screening” would have let BP shortlist a smaller number of top
product ideas like Pizza Taco. The decision to add the product to the menu could have been
taken here but I assume that BP would have more logically gone ahead with “Concept
development & testing” where the developed food items like Pizza Taco would have been
tested with small consumer groups to ascertain feedback on taste and overall consumer
appeal before adding to the menu. Since these new products were added to the menu
spontaneously, BP would likely not have gone through the balance stages of product
development.