Pizza Pizza
Encyclopedia
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
franchise of pizza
Pizza
Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, disc-shaped bread typically topped with a tomato sauce, cheese and various toppings.Originating in Italy, from the Neapolitan cuisine, the dish has become popular in many parts of the world. An establishment that makes and sells pizzas is called a "pizzeria"...
restaurants mainly located in the province of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
. Other locations operate in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, in western Canada
Western Canada
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces and commonly as the West, is a region of Canada that includes the four provinces west of the province of Ontario.- Provinces :...
(mostly through Alberta-based subsidiary Pizza 73
Pizza 73
Pizza 73 is a delivery and take-out chain serving pizza and chicken wings, operated by Flying Pizza 73 Inc., a subsidiary of Pizza Pizza.Founded in 1985 by David Tougas and its current president Guy Goodwin, Pizza 73 is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and operates regionally in Western...
), and in non-traditional locations such as university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
campuses and movie theatres throughout Canada. It has over 500 locations, including over 150 non-traditional locations.
History
The chain, founded and owned by Michael OversMichael Overs
Michael Arthur Overs was a Canadian businessman who was the founder and CEO of Pizza Pizza Limited, a successful franchise of pizza restaurants.- References :...
, opened its first location on December 31, 1967, at the corner of Wellesley and Parliament Streets in Toronto. It expanded throughout the Toronto area in the 1970s, and throughout the rest of Ontario throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The chain opened in the Montreal area in late 2007 with locations in the Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
boroughs of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce , also nicknamed NDG, is a residential neighbourhood of Montreal located in the city's west-end. It is one of five districts of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce...
and Pierrefonds-Roxboro
Pierrefonds-Roxboro
Pierrefonds-Roxboro is a borough of the city of Montreal. It is composed of the former municipalities of Pierrefonds and Roxboro, spanning the northern part of the West Island...
.
Pizza Pizza has recently begun to expand significantly outside Ontario. In its 2005 IPO filings, the chain announced it would consider expansion in western Canada, potentially including purchasing existing local chains. This led to a June 2007 agreement to purchase Alberta-based Pizza 73
Pizza 73
Pizza 73 is a delivery and take-out chain serving pizza and chicken wings, operated by Flying Pizza 73 Inc., a subsidiary of Pizza Pizza.Founded in 1985 by David Tougas and its current president Guy Goodwin, Pizza 73 is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and operates regionally in Western...
. As well, in October 2006, the company announced it would expand in the Quebec market, beginning with sponsorship of the Montreal Canadiens
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal Canadiens are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The club is officially known as ...
. The chain expanded to the British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
Lower Mainland
Lower Mainland
The Lower Mainland is a name commonly applied to the region surrounding and including Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. As of 2007, 2,524,113 people live in the region; sixteen of the province's thirty most populous municipalities are located there.While the term Lower Mainland has been...
in 2009 (Pizza 73 already had a location in Prince George
Prince George, British Columbia
Prince George, with a population of 71,030 , is the largest city in northern British Columbia, Canada, and is known as "BC's Northern Capital"...
in the B.C. Interior), and soon thereafter added locations in Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
and Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
. Pizza Pizza opened its first store in Halifax, Nova Scotia in June 2010.
In 2005, the Pizza Pizza Royalty Income Fund , an open-ended trust, completed its initial public offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
. Pizza Pizza Limited, which remains privately held by Overs son-in-law Paul Goddard, pays the Fund 6% of the sales of its restaurants in Canada.
Major southern Ontario competitors include Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise that offers different styles of pizza along with side dishes including pasta, buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread....
, Domino's Pizza
Domino's Pizza
Domino's Pizza, Inc. is an international pizza delivery corporation headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America. Founded in 1960, Domino's is the second-largest pizza chain in the United States and has over 9,000 corporate and franchised stores in 60 countries and all 50 U.S....
, Little Caesars
Little Caesars
Little Caesars is a pizza chain, estimated to be the 4th largest in the United States. The Little Caesars headquarters is located in the Fox Theatre building in Downtown Detroit, Michigan.-History:...
, Gino's Pizza, 241 Pizza
241 Pizza
241 Pizza is a Canadian franchise chain of pizza restaurants. There are 62 locations across Ontario, particularly in The Greater Toronto Area. There are also locations in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. 241 Pizza competes heavily in the Greater Toronto Area with other pizza chains such as Pizza Pizza,...
, Double Double Pizza, and Pizza Nova
Pizza Nova
Pizza Nova is a Canadian franchise chain of pizza restaurants founded in 1963. The first restaurant was located in the eastern Toronto suburb of Scarborough, Ontario on Kennedy Road near Lawrence Avenue. There are more than 120 locations in Canada, the United States and Cuba. The majority of...
. Two other major Canadian chains, Greco
Greco Pizza Restaurant
Greco Pizza Restaurant is a franchise restaurant chain consisting of over 170 restaurants in Eastern Canada, whose menu is highlighted by pizza delivery. The first restaurant opened in 1977 in Moncton, New Brunswick as Greco Donair...and Pizza...
and Panago
Panago
Panago is a Canadian pizza delivery & takeout chain with 180 locations across 6 provinces. Panago is a franchise business with each location being franchisee-owned and operated. In 2010, Panago served more than 12 million pizzas and generated over 135 million dollars in sales.-History:Owned by...
, which have a presence similar to Pizza Pizza in the Atlantic
Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada is the region of Canada comprising the four provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec: the three Maritime provinces – New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia – and Newfoundland and Labrador...
and Western Canada
Western Canada
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces and commonly as the West, is a region of Canada that includes the four provinces west of the province of Ontario.- Provinces :...
respectively, have also recently entered the Ontario market. In Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, its competitors are Mikes
Mikes (restaurant)
Mikes is a chain of Italian restaurants that originated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with 115 restaurants in Eastern Canada, and a new one located in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the United States....
and Double Pizza.
Starting in 2009, Coca-Cola
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...
products replaced Pepsi
PepsiCo
PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...
products at Pizza Pizza.
Marketing techniques
Pizza Pizza currently uses the self-explanatory slogans "Hot & Fresh" and "Ontario's #1 Pizza!" However, perhaps better known still is the chain's Toronto phone number, (416) 967-1111, the last four digits pronounced "eleven-eleven" to rhyme with "seven". The company claims that its early adoption of the centralized single-number ordering system, and its subsequent use and heavy promotion of this rhyming phone number, helped the chain to grow and soon dominate the Ontario pizza market.In other areas, the local number usually ends in the "11-11" pattern to match a standard jingle used in the chain's radio advertisements. Pizza Pizza has also registered "967-1111" and its variants as trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
s. "967-1111" is registered in Canada under registration number TMA428709.
Besides its memorable jingle
Jingle
A jingle is a short tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. The jingle contains one or more hooks and lyrics that explicitly promote the product being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television...
, Pizza Pizza has laid claim to being first - or among the first - to:
- use a pizza delivery bag
- develop the centralized, computerized call centreCall centreA call centre or call center is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing,...
- place advertisingAdvertisingAdvertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
on the spines of telephone directoriesTelephone directoryA telephone directory is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory... - advertise using Post-It notes on newspaperNewspaperA newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s, and via coupons on parking receipts - use virtual advertisingVirtual advertisingVirtual Advertising is the use of digital technology to insert virtual advertising images into a live or pre-recorded television show, often in Sports events....
, as one of several such advertisers during GlobalGlobal Television NetworkGlobal Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...
's coverage of Super Bowl XXXVISuper Bowl XXXVISuper Bowl XXXVI was an American football game played on February 3, 2002 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana to decide the National Football League champion following the 2001 regular season. The American Football Conference champion New England Patriots won their first Super... - put pineapple on a pizza
It has also recently secured product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Degrassi: The Next Generation is a Canadian teen drama television series set in the Degrassi universe, which was created by Linda Schuyler and Kit Hood in 1979. Degrassi is the fourth fictional series in the Degrassi franchise, and follows The Kids of Degrassi Street, Degrassi Junior High, and...
.
Outside of Ontario, Pizza Pizza has benefited from various pop-culture references. Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
musicians Moxy Früvous
Moxy Früvous
Moxy Früvous was a politically satirical folk-pop band from Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. The band was founded in 1989, and was active throughout the 1990s...
mention it in their song "King of Spain
King of Spain (song)
"King of Spain" is a song by Canadian musical group Moxy Früvous, and was the second independent song to hit number one in Canada, after The Barenaked Ladies' "Be My Yoko Ono"....
". A chapter of Michael Moore
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
's book Downsize This!
Downsize This!
Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American is a book by American author and producer Michael Moore.The book is a look at the state of business and industry in the United States and the power they hold over the U.S. government...
advises illegal immigrants who want to sneak into Canada at Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
to memorize Pizza Pizza's Toronto number to appear Canadian. Moore cites Pizza Pizza as Canada's "national pizza chain" when at the time of publishing they did not have any locations outside of eastern Canada
Eastern Canada
Eastern Canada is generally considered to be the region of Canada east of Manitoba, consisting of the following provinces:* New Brunswick* Newfoundland and Labrador* Nova Scotia* Ontario* Prince Edward Island* Quebec...
.
"Pizza! Pizza!" is also recognized, primarily in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as the slogan for another pizza
Pizza
Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, disc-shaped bread typically topped with a tomato sauce, cheese and various toppings.Originating in Italy, from the Neapolitan cuisine, the dish has become popular in many parts of the world. An establishment that makes and sells pizzas is called a "pizzeria"...
franchise, Little Caesars
Little Caesars
Little Caesars is a pizza chain, estimated to be the 4th largest in the United States. The Little Caesars headquarters is located in the Fox Theatre building in Downtown Detroit, Michigan.-History:...
. The companies are not affiliated and in fact compete in many areas of Canada. Little Caesars has been prohibited from using it as a slogan in Canada, as part of Pizza Pizza's court defence of the trademark and the great possibility of confusion between the two firms. Pizza Pizza sold rights to the use of its "Pizza Pizza" radio jingle and slogan to Little Caesar's in 1979.
Pizza Pizza's canned Coca-Cola products have a Gold top instead of the more conventional Silver top. This is so that it is obvious whether or not Coca-Cola products being sold by Pizza Pizza franchisees have been purchased through the Pizza Pizza commisary or not, for control purposes.