When it comes to consuming Junk food in India, most of the metro culture goes with the staple diet of Pizza along with other refreshments. According to a new research report, The pizza market in India is worth, above 1500 crores, and is growing at a CAGR (consumer annual growth rate) of 26% for the last 5 years, with Domino’s alone having over 55% market share in organized pizza market and 70% market share in pizza home delivery segment.
As with all the consumer related categories, Pizza Chains too display a strong presence on digital and social media with metros being their primary target along with Tier II & Tier III cities. We conducted a social media presence check of the major Pizza Chains across India and how they have managed so far to survive and utilise social media to their consumers benefit.
When it comes to popularity, Dominos Pizza India & Pizza Hut are the clear cut leaders in the Pizza market on Social Media. Both of the chains have a healthy (million plus) community on Facebook. With the help of Social Media Listening Tool Talkwalker, we look at Dominos India and Pizza Hut India popularity and how the consumers perceive the brands on social media. The analysis was done for the Indian Brands from 27th Jan 2014 – 21st Feb 2014.
When it comes to the brand’s share of voice Domino’s Pizza India leads the pack with 83% share of voice. Running regular contests on Twitter was one of the reasons of regular spike in conversations and mentions related to Dominos India as compared to Pizza Hut which ran one contest with the hashtag #OMGUnBelievable helping them with more than 2K mentions on 20th Feb 2014 for their new launch of ‘The Big Pizza’ in the Indian market
Domino’s India had a relative larger share of positive comments as opposed to Pizza Hut. However, some negative comments were observed for their website usability and pricing. Most of the complaints were around the money not being refunded by Dominos. Similar service related queries were observed for Pizza Hut on their Facebook Timeline.
When it comes to Twitter engagement, according to Twtrland Dominos Pizza India scores double in engagement as compared to Pizza Hut (in terms of RT’s per 100 Tweets). The conversation on Facebook for Dominos is a mix around the product (Pizza) offers along with the various ocassions surrounding it (Cricket Matches, Festivals) which garner good response from their fans. While Pizza Hut banking on after the end of Dominos Wednesday Offers, started along their Facebook Offers (Buy One Get One Free) to shift pizza loving people to their brand.The Brand now is buys promoting their latest products on their Facebook page along with offers.
Conclusion:
When it comes to overall user awareness on digital, Dominos India takes the cake with a greater brand recall as far as pizza’s are concerned with most of the mentions surrounding Pizza’s had them as a brand mentioned over Pizza Hut. Dominos India also heavily promotes their website offers to purchase Pizzas online (which also draws flak for the Brand owing to their lack of responsive website) on Facebook and Twitter. This compells the user to have a convenience over ordering online than actually visiting their store. Pizza Hut though having similar functionality does not market their website for ordering pizza’s as hardcore as their competitor.The engagement strategy for Dominos seems to be faring well as far as their Facebook/Twitter presence is concerned. I would also urge them to use Instagram/Vine which can work pretty well for them with the tools being intensely popular with their target audience.
This is supported when we look at the past 12 months search intent of the Indian users (via Google Trends) with Pizza Hut being lower in user search intent than Dominos Pizza.
Which one is your Favorite Pizza Chain? And what are your thoughts on the usage of Social Media by these Brands in India. Do let us know in the comments.
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