January / February 2007

For a pizza chain targeting college students, Toppers’
uniforms were conservative, maybe even dorky. But a radical
transformation has made these threads into the …

By Jay Gordon

cott Gittrich is something of a celebrity in southern Wisconsin, home to the popular chain of Toppers Pizza shops he founded 15 years ago. But he never really felt like one until the day recently when he unveiled a dramatic new uniform – and got a standing ovation from his employees.

“We finally got it right,” Gittrich says. “All this time we had been making these 20-year-olds dress up in church clothes. Now they get to wear the clothes they like to wear. They’re pumped.”

So is Gittrich and the rest of his Toppers team, because the uniforms are a small but crucial element of a massive reimaging campaign that is taking the chain back to its roots as a college campus icon, helping it rebuild a magnetic corporate culture and – best of all – driving sales growth.

Taking a Shine to the brand
From the moment Toppers Pizza was born in 1991, the chain developed strong bonds with its target audience – pizza-craving college students. But instead of continuing to focus on what got Toppers’ to the the top of the heap in pizza – unit sales are up to 50% greater than national competitors like Pizza Hut and Papa John’s, with 90% of sales from delivery – the chain began to reach out to other customer segments, such as families. This “all things to all people” approach to marketing caused Toppers to lose an important piece of its identity. The chain began to look and feel more and more like those homogenous national chains – right down to its employee uniforms.

“We were wearing polo shirts and khaki slacks,” Gittrich says. “Our look was Pizza Hut. We’d have these fanatical college students apply for a job, and we were making ourselves out to be the ‘super fun pizza place on campus,’ but then we’d show them the uniform they had to wear. We literally had people who wouldn’t work for us because of that.”

Gittrich decided that a new advertising program might be just the ticket to help regain the brand’s vitality. That’s when he made the connection with Shine Advertising, an up-and-coming Madison, WI-based agency. But Shine wasn’t interested in just developing a new set of ads for Toppers; it wanted to go deeper – to help the chain reconnect with its core customers.

“With those consumers, who are savvy and skeptical, you’re only as good as your weakest link,” says Curt Hanke, co-founder and account director for Shine. “One false note and your brand doesn’t ring true with them. Your brand position has to be manifested at every point of contact.”

For Shine, that meant re-examining, and re-inventing, every customer “touch-point” – from the way the phone is answered when customers call to place an order, to the way pizzas are delivered to their door – so that they help build the relationship between the brand and its college customers. Print ads, coupons and direct mail now feature funny and irreverent messages designed to entertain – and rise above the “clutter.” Even the “elevator music” customers used to listen to while waiting to place an order has been replaced with a series of listening options, from squawking cockatiels to a recitation of the letter “M” from the Random House College Dictionary to purring kittens and subliminal messages. No one gets bored while they’re on hold anymore. In fact, says Gittrich, “we now have students calling back just to listen to the hold messages.”

The three Cs
But nowhere has Toppers brand repositioning been more dramatic – or had a more profound impact – than in the company’s choice of a new uniform. Out are the khakis and polo shirts with the old-fashioned top hat logo. In are untucked mechanic shirts and work jackets, jeans, skull-caps and baseball hats with the chain’s new iconic crown logo.

“We talked to drivers, store employees and franchisees, and asked them what they wanted in a uniform,” says Shine’s Curt Hanke. “They told us they wanted three Cs: comfort, credibility and cool. What they were really saying is, ‘I don’t want to feel like a dork when I deliver a pizza.’”

“Most of the people who work for Topper are the target audience,” he adds. “Asking an 18- to 25-year-old to wear a conservative uniform they would never wear on their own – and then asking them to deliver to a bar or a dorm or a frat house party – was a major disconnect for the Toppers brand.”

A standing ovation at the companywide meeting to introduce the new brand positioning was just one indicator that, more than any other single element of the campaign, the new uniforms were a catalyst for the biggest change in employee attitudes in the 15-year history of the company. Employees immediately began asking if they’d be able to buy additional uniform sets (yes) and whether they could wear the uniform when they’re off the clock (no).

“That’s the ultimate bar for employee uniforms,” says Hanke. “The uniform went from something they were embarrassed by to a badge of honor.”

“Employees are really digging on it,” agrees the company president, Scott Gittrich. “The uniforms are recognizable and consistent with the brand image.”Some of Toppers’ franchisees are giving the shirts and hats to employees, but most stores ask employees to pay for them through payroll deductions, or they require a deposit (about $25 a shirt). Employees receive one shirt for each day they work in a week; it’s their responsibility to keep them clean, and management won’t let the employee wear the shirt if it looks like it’s been slept in. The stores either refund the deposit or buy the uniforms back when an employee leaves. To satisfy employees, customers and others who want a piece of Toppers’ hip new look, the chain is considering a new revenue stream: selling a knock-off of the uniform shirt. “We know there are a lot of people who want Toppers gear now,” Gittrich says.