Papa John’s is Very Sorry to Cleveland
The short story is this. The Cavs played the Wizards in the opening round of the playoffs. The Wizards despite pussying out on the name “Bullets” felt that it would be a good idea to beat the crap out of LeBron James and then call him a crybaby when he said he wasn’t going to bend from all their shots that they were throwing his way.
Papa John’s in Washington thought it would be a fine idea to print some Crybaby t-shirts with the number 23 on them for the sixth game of the opening round where LeBron scored a triple double and sent the Wizards to the golf course for the season. Didn’t you all look silly with those t-shirts on as you left early due to the pounding that LeBron gave you in your home arena?
The problem with Papa John’s opportunistic promotion was that Cleveland is a decent market for Papa John’s. Clevelanders eat a lot of pizza, apparently. I counted on the website and there are at least 10 locations that come up when I search my zip code. That means that there are ten within striking distance of Cleveland and LeBron fans. How does that guerrilla marketing plan look now?
Boycotts were mentioned. Cleveland fans were riled up. You will remember that this is the same sports town that sent John “Big Dawg” Thompson (right) to testify before congress after Art Modell and the NFL stole our professional football team.
Well, Papa John’s was scared so they have apologized and are going to offer large one-topping pizzas to Cleveland residents on Thursday for a small price of 23 cents in honor of LeBron James’ number 23. The big joke will be when they only offer the food to “Cleveland” residents. You see, the way we draw the lines for our cities and towns around here means that almost nobody actually lives in “Cleveland.” Out of the 10 stores listed on the website as being near my home, only 3 are actually in the city of Cleveland. Are the near suburban residents out of luck? We will see.
Chris Said,
May 5, 2008 @ 8:45 am
Bwah hah hah. The twist in this is that Papa John’s is largely franchised, so unless some mega-franchisee has both DC and Cleveland (or all the stores are company-owned), the company that made the shirts is most likely not the same company that’s offering the 23 cent pizzas. Probably at least one interesting conversation between people in corporate franchisee relations and one or more franchisees. Gotta wonder if corporate is eating the loss on Cleveland franchisee discounts. And if they are, gotta also wonder if the suburban Cleveburg franchisees are ticked that they didn’t get the 23-cent promo. Walk into one and ask…I bet you’ll get an ear full.