Each month the global FITCH Must See team explore the best in brand experiences. Design Director Jay Adams shares how &Pizza is reacting to the global current health crisis.
When exactly do brands put a stake in the ground, and declare what they stand for?
Brand purpose is usually carved from a deep-rooted cause particularly close to the brand’s legacy, focus or following. Or its newly developed as a reaction to our rapidly developing socio-cultural behaviors, needs and demands.
But right now, the entire world is watching on as brands big and small react to the current global pandemic. And the &Pizza company didn’t miss a beat in showing the world exactly what the brand really stands for.
As soon as the crisis kicked off, &Pizza jumped to help and reassure employees by making sure they could still get to work safely, or giving them the pay and support they needed to stay home. In the following 30 days, the brand announced a ream of further measures of support; including alterations to its sick leave policy, pay changes, transportation assistance, an advisory helpline, and - quite significantly - closing up HQ and discharging corporate employees out to support the shops. This is just the reaction on an internal level.
The brand then launched #FeedThem — a campaign where &Pizza park its food trucks outside of hospitals to provide a free ‘Hero Pie’ for hungry hospital employees. The response has been incredible, snowballing into today’s donation scheme where the public can join in and donate a Hero Pie if they want to get involved and personally be part of a wonderful program which is making a difference. It’s also hosting digital festivals with partners online to keep fans entertained and connected across its socials.
As our retail market make-up consists more of companies that come and go with little to no social responsibility; it’s refreshing to see a hospitality brand be so quick, confident, and matter of fact in reassuring their own teams, but also jumping straight into the deep end to support their communities.
There are many larger returns a brand can get from innovative design that changes the way people perceive them. The true value is best benchmarked on elevating the way we live, in a noticeable and influential way.
Doing well by doing good.
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