Greenwich takes marketing game to new level
The term “yindie” has been around for a while now, although it did not become a buzz word like “yuppie.”
It is defined in dictionaries as an informal term referring to a person who combines a lucrative career with non-mainstream tastes.
For Greenwich, the biggest pizza chain in the country, however, yindies are cool and hip, stylish, confident and independent young people who belong to the digital generation.
They are less stiff and less formal compared with the yuppies.
The yindies work hard and play hard. They value friendship and strive for a balanced life. They are the core target market, particularly the barkadang yindies (buddies), of Greenwich.
Greenwich focuses its marketing campaign on the yindie groups and the strategy has worked wonders.
From a pizza chain that was ranked five years ago somewhere in the bottom of the industry ladder with other small pizza stores, Greenwich has become the No. 1 pizza chain in the country, accounting for at least 60 percent of the P5-billion market.
“Our market share is now bigger than those of the other two major pizza chains in the country, combined,” says Luis U. Velasco III, marketing director of Fresh N’ Famous Foods Inc., maker of Greenwich pizza and a member-company of the Jollibee Foods group.
Perfect match
Velasco says the campaign focusing on the barkadas started when, after conducting research five years ago, the company realized it was nowhere to be found in the pizza industry’s list of major players. It was lumped with the rest of small players, which were hardly making a dent in the pizza market.
“We decided that we want our brand to be stronger in the minds of our consumers. We took a closer look at our products, identified our strongest offering, which is pizza, and studied its characteristics. We then looked for the type of market that we wanted to talk to,” Velasco recounts.
“Pizza is a fun product, adventurous considering the many kinds of toppings one can put on it, less formal as you eat it with your bare hands whether sitting or standing and it is a type of food that people enjoy eating when shared,” he says.
Given the characteristics of its main product offering, it was decided that Greenwich pizza and the yindies were a perfect match.
Just like Greenwich pizza, the yindie market is casual, more adventurous, hip and fun, and interactive and inclusive.
“There has to be a strong product and consumer connection to attain our objective,” says Velasco.
Leveling up
As Greenwich turned its focus on this segment of the market, the company decided to level up and redefine itself from being a fast-food to a fast-casual chain of restaurants.
“Our roots are fast food and we are not abandoning it, we are only upgrading the customers’ experience in our restaurants,” Velasco says.
To transform into a fast-casual restaurant, Greenwich did a makeover of all of its outlets, improved on its pizzas in terms of quality and the varieties of its offering, made its pastas (especially the lasagna) at par with the offerings of even some fine-dining restaurants in the metropolis, introduced other fun food like chicken wings, offered full meals and even breakfast meals in some outlets.
“We upgraded our looks and our service to customers. Our offerings now are not the usual fast-food type of products anymore,” Velasco says.
“We have been known as the affordable pizza option, that is fine and we are keeping that. But we also want to be known for good taste, quality service and a part of the barkada.”
John Lloyd and his buddies
Five years ago, Greenwich also formed its barkada—with movie actor John Lloyd Cruz and actress Anne Curtis leading the pack—that helped communicate its message to its target market. And as a true barkada, John Lloyd, Anne and Greenwich have stayed together since then. There’s no pizza campaign without John Lloyd or pasta ad without Anne.
“We keep them fresh with every story we share. We try to do different stories every campaign, what remain constant are John Lloyd, Anne and the message that our brand is for people like them and their barkadas.”
Not only is Greenwich Pizza successful in winning the market it wanted to serve, it also earned favorable reviews from some food writers and consumers, Velasco says.
Since the campaign started, pizza sales have grown by more than 80 percent while those of the Greenwich pasta doubled.
Fresh pizza all the time
The Greenwich store network has gone beyond 200 and it is still growing. The company owns 60 percent of the stores while the rest are under franchising arrangement.
The pizza chain has just completed another phase in its continuing innovation.
To serve fresher pizza, Greenwich overhauled the kitchens in all of its restaurants to accommodate equipment that process the dough used in making pizzas.
Unlike before, when all the restaurants depended on the central commissary for their already formed pizza dough, each outlet can now prepare its fresh dough right in its own kitchen.
For the company and its franchise holders, the move might have meant additional costs, but it was worth every centavo spent as it would keep Greenwich customers happy.
