Yum! Brands Inc. YUM division Pizza Hut is leaving no stone unturned to draw customers and fend off competition.
Reportedly, this week Pizza Hut has released an emoji-centric menu at select restaurants in the U.K. to celebrate World Emoji Day. Customers can order for the pizza offerings using the emoji symbols or refer to the regular menu, which will also be available.
Notably, six restaurants in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Manchester and Cardiff are currently offering the all-emoji menu that will be available till Jul 17. However, the emoji is yet to hit the Pizza Hut outlets in the U.S.
Order through Emoji
With this latest move, Pizza Hut has joined the list of pizza operators that have employed emoji usage to cash in on their popularity. We note that this is part of a broader trend of pizza chains undertaking technology and social media initiatives to promote their brands.
YUM! BRANDS INC Price
YUM! BRANDS INC Price | YUM! BRANDS INC Quote
Last year, Domino's Pizza, Inc. DPZ added to its immensely popular digital platform by introducing the concept of ordering by sending an emoji through a text message. Once customers have registered their phone numbers under Pizza Profile at the company’s website, they can text a pizza emoji to DPIZZA and place their saved Easy Order. Papa John's International Inc. PZZA also makes use of the pizza emoji on Twitter.
Our Take
The digital wave has thus indeed hit the U.S. fast casual restaurant sector and Yum! Brands is not far behind.
Moreover, only recently, Pizza Hut unveiled a new social ordering platform named chatbot to provide conversational ordering of pizzas and other menu items on Facebook Messenger and Twitter.
Thus, at a time when pizza chains are increasingly embracing digital technology to gain market share and rake in more profits, we believe Pizza Hut’s latest efforts will augment spending, improve customer experience and lower serving expenses.
Yum! Brands currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in this sector is Jack in the Box Inc. JACK with a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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