Storyboard: Bertucci's Playing with Fire

A new campaign brands Bertucci's as Italian dining rather than pizzeria.

By Margaret Littman, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 6/1/2004

Rick Barbrick calculates that there are 27 million frequenters of casual-dining restaurants in the Northeast, 6 million of whom fit the demographic of Bertucci’s Brick Oven Pizzeria. Currently, the regional chain attracts 2 million of that affluent audience, meaning there is “huge potential” for adding new diners to its loyal customer base.

Based on those figures, President and Chief Operating Officer Barbrick is rebranding the 23-year-old chain. Since he took Northborough, Mass.-based Bertucci’s private in 1999, Barbrick has steadily evolved it from a pizzeria to an Italian casual-dining concept. Pizza sales have dropped from 45 percent of total sales to 32 percent, while the average check increased from $9.30 to $12.43.

Some of that progress came thanks to a 2002 advertising campaign playing off the Cab Calloway song, “Everybody Eats When They Come to My House.” In its first year, the Calloway ads helped the chain increase same-store sales 7.6 percent. But eventually the campaign ran its course. By the second year of the campaign, Bertucci’s was generating just 1 percent of its business from new guests, less than the 3 percent goal the company set to make up for regular attrition of customers.

As a result, Barbrick charged his team to create not just a new series of TV ads but a full-fledged branding campaign. The strengthened brand, he hopes, will bring in new customers and prepare the chain for expansion through franchising beginning in late 2005. Bertucci’s will open three company-owned units this year and five to eight in 2005.

“‘Everybody Eats at Our House’ was driven by the jingle. The song was the hero. We needed the food to be the hero,” Barbrick explains.

Anything but Pizza
With Cronin|Wallwork Curry, the Boston-based ad agency that has held the Bertucci’s account since October 2001, the chain conducted research to determine consumers’ perceptions of the brand. In two separate focus groups, loyal Bertucci’s diners were sent to competing Italian eateries, while those unfamiliar with Bertucci’s dined at the chain. Customers were asked to order items other than pizza.

The research revealed what Barbrick and his team already suspected. “We did not get credit for what we do in our restaurants every day,” he says. “We make dough, make garlic paste by hand, every day. We have no microwaves, no steam tables to keep things hot. As a chain, we are always rated highly for food quality. But some people found it hard to believe that a chain would not make these shortcuts like use microwaves and not use fresh ingredients.”

It was that point of difference that Cronin|Wallwork Curry and Bertucci’s management emphasized in the new branding effort.

“One of the things that kept coming out was Bertucci’s uncompromising standards. Whether it is the small batches of sauces made several times every day or roasting vegetables, those things elevate the brand,” says Kim Manning, senior vice president and director of strategic planning at Cronin|Wallwork Curry.

Fanning the Flames
The trio of new 30-second TV commercials underscores the way Bertucci’s chefs chop herbs, make sauces, bake bread and eschew microwaves to create fresh, made-to-order dishes.

Using a new tagline, “Bertucci’s. Keepers of the flame,” the spots also highlight the concept’s signature brick ovens. The appliances are the physical focal point of the restaurants, and new entrees—from pastas and sandwiches to fish and chicken—are cooked in the ovens, as well as the pizzas.

Bertucci’s unveiled a new menu in April, the same day the new ads hit the airwaves. It emphasizes the made-to-order entrees rather than pizza, which may help Barbrick further reduce pizza sales to his goal of 27 percent of total sales and continue to increase the average check.

The $5.7 million ad campaign—$1 million of which was spent on the development of the creative—was shot in Italy using an Italian director, actors and crew. “We wanted to make it as authentic as possible,” Manning explains.

Back at home, Bertucci’s is reinforcing the message in-house with point-of-sale materials and buttons worn by the wait staff sporting lines such as, “Microwaves are for popcorn.” Employees, Barbrick says, have been supportive of the new campaign.

After all, he asks: “Who would not want to be keeper of the flame?”

Micro/Chicken Length: 30 seconds
1. Voice-over: For centuries, Italian chefs have insisted on freshness.	2. A tradition strictly followed by every chef at Bertucci’s.
3. There are no microwaves at Bertucci’s. Instead, sauces are prepared in small batches.	4. Each dish is made to order and roasted in an open-flame brick oven.
5. Who cooks like this anymore?	6. Bertucci’s.
7. We keep the passion for authentic Italian cooking burning every day.	8. Bertucci’s. Keepers of the flame.