DRAMA OF THE YEAR: PIZZA EXPRESS
Amid a backdrop of casual dining carnage and CVAs around every corner, the industry had plenty of news in 2019. But Pizza Express delivered drama.
With 490 sites in the UK, Pizza Express is a national institution. So when it announced a net debt pile of £1.1bn earlier this year, and premature rumours of its demise hit the airwaves, the country rallied itself in the way it does best these days – by keyboard.
Pizza Express is casual dining royalty, a high street family favourite for fifty years. It was voted the UK’s favourite casual dining restaurant by a YouGov poll in September. So it’s unsurprising that calls to #SavePizzaExpress erupted on Twitter.
Critics weighed in, but the outpouring of love for the simple delights of Pizza Express, namely dough balls, the American Hot, and being a promo-friendly family favourite meant the overwhelming emotion at the news was one of grief, not relief.
Fortunately, despite £465m of secured bonds due for repayment in August 2021, followed by £200m of unsecured dept due the following year, a distressed exchange or debt restructuring seems more likely than the brand disappearing forever.
Pizza Express says 95% of its UK and Ireland restaurants are profitable and it has no plans to close sites in the near future. Consumers will still be able to access doughballs and discounts in years to come, cue a heavy sigh of relief from Twitter. It’s been dramatic. And that wasn’t the end of it.
Thanks to Pizza Express Woking rivalling Pizza Express Soho as its most (in)famous site in the entire estate, it really was a case of buy one drama, get one free.
COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: SPUDULIKE
Deeply embedded in the heart of the nation, thanks to its comforting food and a loveably interpretive namecheck by Victoria Wood, Spudulike may not have been beautiful but it was loved by many.
Without mitigating the joy that a piping hot beany cheesy jacket potato on a wet and miserable day can bring, it didn’t come as a shock when the business announced it was going into administration in August.
In a fiercely overcrowded day part, and with the far fancier likes of Pret, Itsu and Leon (the list goes on…) to contend with, Spudulike’s place in today’s market is not what it was. But that’s not to say it shouldn’t have a place.
It was a sentiment shared by potato giant Albert Bartlett. Two months after Spudulike shuttered all of its 37 stores, Albert Bartlett moved in to reheat eight of them. Prices have been cut, the offer refined, with quality enhanced. And Spudulike is once again what it should be, a haven of satisfyingly cheap and cheerful carbs. Plus now it has better coffee.
So, Spudulike wins comeback of the year. Not because it was front-page news or because it’ll change the shape of the sector, but simply because a 35-year-old British brand, recognised fondly by all generations, deserves more than to quietly slip away like an old spud.
MARKETING STUNT OF THE YEAR: BURGER KING’S BREXIT WHOPPER
It might have been a slow year for many, but the Advertising Standards Authority has been busy.
A Deliveroo mum diving into a Mary Poppins-style bag of goodies to distribute a never-ending selection to her never-ending family, Blackrose claiming their Fizz Friday Prosecco offer will cure anxiety, and KFC’s “What the cluck?!” campaign, all attracted complaints from irate members of the public.
They were all banned by the ASA for being too ‘misleading’, for encouraging ‘excessive drinking’, and for being too motherclucking rude.
So partially for surviving ASA regulation, but also for finding the funny in the current calamity that is British politics, Burger King’s Brexit bus wins Marketing Stunt of the Year.
Mimicking the Vote Leave’s 2016 battle bus, which claimed that £350m of public funds sent to the EU would instead fund the NHS post-Brexit, a dodgy promise which many believe swayed the nation to vote Leave, the Burger King advert read: “Another Whopper on the side of a bus. Must be an election.”
It went viral. “Well done BK. No more election lies please,” said one Twitter user. Another jumped on the joke with “Burger means burger.”
“As the home of the Whopper, we felt that if anyone has the right to stick Whoppers on the side of a bus, it’s us,” Burger King told the Evening Standard.
Seems fair, it’s only a shame it won’t stop the politicians from trying. Guts and glory from BK. A deserving winner.
LOSS OF THE YEAR: JAMIE’S ITALIAN
Jamie Oliver is a polarising figure, but even his detractors would have struggled to celebrate the collapse of his restaurant chain.
The news had been coming. Oliver injected £13m into Jamie’s Italian to stave off bankruptcy in 2018, but in May 2019 the once popular operation went into administration. Twenty five restaurants closed with the loss of 1,000 jobs.
Where did it all go wrong? Enough has been written about how and why, but for all the hyperbolic judgement about Jamie, the only major misstep he ever made businesswise was to go into restaurants.
His operation is split into three arms. TV and books, which in 2018 returned £32m in sales and pre-tax profits of £5.6m. Knives and pans delivered £9.7m in sales and pre-tax profits of £6.6m. Pukka profits.
But though the restaurant business served up sales of £111m, after a very long slide, pre-tax profits slipped to a fatal £29m loss. Apart from a presence at Gatwick Airport the Jamie’s Italian brand has disappeared from the UK.
But globally the brand remains strong. In November Oliver’s international restaurant business revealed plans to launch a new all-day dining concept, Jamie Oliver Kitchen, in Bali and Bangkok. It now has a world-wide portfolio of 70 restaurants across 27 countries, run with 20 franchise partners.
A further 19 openings are currently planned up until the end of 2020.
Jamie Oliver may be a polarising figure around town, but he’s still popular around the world.
Precis
REVIEW OF THE YEAR PART ONE
DRAMA OF THE YEAR: PIZZA EXPRESS
Amid a backdrop of casual dining carnage and CVAs around every corner, the industry had plenty of news in 2019. But Pizza Express delivered drama.
With 490 sites in the UK, Pizza Express is a national institution. So when it announced a net debt pile of £1.1bn earlier this year, and premature rumours of its demise hit the airwaves, the country rallied itself in the way it does best these days – by keyboard.
Pizza Express is casual dining royalty, a high street family favourite for fifty years. It was voted the UK’s favourite casual dining restaurant by a YouGov poll in September. So it’s unsurprising that calls to #SavePizzaExpress erupted on Twitter.
Critics weighed in, but the outpouring of love for the simple delights of Pizza Express, namely dough balls, American Hot, and being a promo-friendly family favourite meant the overwhelming emotion at the news was one of grief, not relief.
Fortunately, despite £465m of secured bonds due for repayment in August 2021, followed by £200m of unsecured dept due the following year, a distressed exchange or debt restructuring seems more likely than the brand disappearing forever.
Pizza Express says 95% of its UK and Ireland restaurants are profitable and it has no plans to close sites in the near future. Consumers will still be able to access doughballs and discounts in years to come, cue a heavy sigh of relief from Twitter. It’s been dramatic. And that wasn’t the end of it.
Thanks to Pizza Express Woking rivalling Pizza Express Soho as its most (in)famous site in the entire estate, it really was a case of buy one drama, get one free.
COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: SPUDULIKE
Deeply embedded in the heart of the nation, thanks to its comforting food and a loveably interpretive namecheck by Victoria Wood, Spudulike may not have been beautiful but it was loved by many.
Without mitigating the joy that a piping hot beany cheesy jacket potato on a wet and miserable day can bring, it didn’t come as a shock when the business announced it was going into administration in August.
In a fiercely overcrowded day part, and with the far fancier likes of Pret, Itsu and Leon (the list goes on…) to contend with, Spudulike’s place in today’s market is not what it was. But that’s not to say it shouldn’t have a place.
It was a sentiment shared by potato giant Albert Bartlett. Two months after Spudulike shuttered all of its 37 stores, Albert Bartlett moved in to reheat eight of them. Prices have been cut, the offer refined, with quality enhanced. And Spudulike is once again what it should be, a haven of satisfyingly cheap and cheerful carbs. Plus now it has better coffee.
So, Spudulike wins comeback of the year. Not because it was front-page news or because it’ll change the shape of the sector, but simply because a 35-year-old British brand, recognised fondly by all generations, deserves more than to quietly slip away like an old spud.
MARKETING STUNT OF THE YEAR: BURGER KING’S BREXIT WHOPPER
It might have been a slow year for many, but the Advertising Standards Authority has been busy.
A Deliveroo mum diving into a Mary Poppins-style bag of goodies to distribute a never-ending selection to her never-ending family, Blackrose claiming their Fizz Friday Prosecco offer will cure anxiety, and KFC’s “What the cluck?!” campaign, all attracted complaints from irate members of the public.
They were all banned by the ASA for being too ‘misleading’, for encouraging ‘excessive drinking’, and for being too motherclucking rude.
So partially for surviving ASA regulation, but also for finding the funny in the current calamity that is British politics, Burger King’s Brexit bus wins Marketing Stunt of the Year.
Mimicking the Vote Leave’s 2016 battle bus, which claimed that £350m of public funds sent to the EU would instead fund the NHS post-Brexit, a dodgy promise which many believe swayed the nation to vote Leave, the Burger King advert read: “Another Whopper on the side of a bus. Must be an election.”
It went viral. “Well done BK. No more election lies please,” said one Twitter user. Another jumped on the joke with “Burger means burger.”
“As the home of the Whopper, we felt that if anyone has the right to stick Whoppers on the side of a bus, it’s us,” Burger King told the Evening Standard.
Seems fair, it’s only a shame it won’t stop the politicians from trying. Guts and glory from BK. A deserving winner.
LOSS OF THE YEAR: JAMIE’S ITALIAN
Jamie Oliver is a polarising figure, but even his detractors would have struggled to celebrate the collapse of his restaurant chain.
The news had been coming. Oliver injected £13m into Jamie’s Italian to stave off bankruptcy in 2018, but in May 2019 the once popular operation went into administration. Twenty five restaurants closed with the loss of 1,000 jobs.
Where did it all go wrong? Enough has been written about how and why, but for all the hyperbolic judgement about Jamie, the only major misstep he ever made businesswise was to go into restaurants.
His operation is split into three arms. TV and books, which in 2018 returned £32m in sales and pre-tax profits of £5.6m. Knives and pans delivered £9.7m in sales and pre-tax profits of £6.6m. Pukka profits.
But though the restaurant business served up sales of £111m, after a very long slide, pre-tax profits slipped to a fatal £29m loss. Apart from a presence at Gatwick Airport the Jamie’s Italian brand has disappeared from the UK.
But globally the brand remains strong. In November Oliver’s international restaurant business revealed plans to launch a new all-day dining concept, Jamie Oliver Kitchen, in Bali and Bangkok. It now has a world-wide portfolio of 70 restaurants across 27 countries, run with 20 franchise partners.
A further 19 openings are currently planned up until the end of 2020.
Jamie Oliver may be a polarising figure around town, but he’s still popular around the world.
