Any inexpensive pizza happy meals/kid toys out there we can give with deliveries and take-outs? I would like to keep it 5 cents or below per pizza if posssible due to the low-low margins right now. I am finding out that many kids are choosing burger joints, including my own. OUCH! Thanks for any help or suggestions! Warm regards … Annette[/b]
Here are a couple of ideas I will copy and paste from the Idea Forums and past articles in PMQ, maybe this will give you some ideas.
http://www.pmq.com/Summer-2002/PMQs-Idea-Forum/
Make desserts irresistible with 3D View-Master
Here?s an unique selling technique that has been in use for over 60 years. View-Master will send a 3D camera to your pizza business and you snap the pictures. Send it back and you soon be showing your customers 3D dessert, kids menu or gourmet pizza presentations.
View-Master
Contact: Sandy Kensinger
Email: sandy.kensinger@fisher-price.com
Website: www.customviewmaster.com
Telephone: (716) 687-3899
Fax: (716) 687-3506
Strategy #120
“Happy Meal” Idea Applied to Pizzerias
What may be one of the greatest fast-food marketing strategies of all time is the Happy Meal. Why? Because it directly markets to kids with something that appeals to them more than a regular hamburger and fries? toys. McDonald?s isn?t the only one to successfully employ this idea. Cracker Jacks sold tons of caramel-covered popcorn with the toy idea as well as nearly all of the sweetened cereals. Kids don?t think about the food, they go for the toys. Multipax has a tool you can use to put kids on your side when it comes time to decide where the family eats.
The product is basically a “toy container” that is placed on the top of the pizza. Pre-packed inside each container is a small toy, similar to the ones found in coin-operated vending machines like you see in grocery stores or the malls. Not only can you use them as a tool to win kids over, they can also serve as a lid support for delivery boxes because they have small legs that make the toy containers “stand” above the pizza.
Here are a couple of ways to use this product. First, you can use them with a slice box for kid?s meals. Create a menu item like the Happy Meal where you offer a slice, with the toy inside the box, and a soda. The advantages here are twofold. First, you have something that will attract kids because of the toy collectibles. Second, you can generate additional revenues because kids will want your kid?s meal rather than just eating a slice of mom and dad?s pizza.
Another way to use the Multipax is to just place the toy/gift container on the top of any size pizza. This container can also be used as a spice holder or with any kind of promotion (coupons, magnets, gifts, hard candies, etc.). Use a signature blend of spices your customers can sprinkle over the pie and make your pizzas unique. Papa John?s has had great success with an idea like this by including the cups of garlic butter with each order.
There are six different colors of containers from which you can choose. If you buy a big quantity (over 1000), you can choose the color and have them match your restaurant?s logo colors. There are many different licensed toys in stock including: Rug Rats, Arnold, SpongeBob SquarePants, WWF, necklaces, and others. Multipax can even provide, if you want, the boxes for your kids meal. Multipax can also provide point-of-purchase materials, such as posters to increase awareness and promote a kid?s meal. Special logos and designs will be accepted depending on quantities ordered.
To read more about the Multipax products and view some of the toys you can get, go to www.multipax.biz/main.html or email them at multipax_inc@hotmail.com. To speak with a representative about products and ideas, call 718-818-0462.
Strategy #98
Kids will Flip Their Lids Over This Idea
Move over Pokemon, there’s a new craze that is here to take your place-FLIP-ITZ. Here is a new toy/marketing tool created by two kid inventors that has the attention of the Wall Street Journal, The Early Show and kids and parents everywhere. So, what is it? It’s a pizza box lid support that’s also a collectable toy. What these young entrepreneurs have done is turn something that is usually thrown away as soon as the pizza box is opened into something kids and adults want to collect, trade and play with turning them into powerful marketing tools.
These three and four-legged stands serve first as lid supports to protect the pizza as it is being delivered, but their purpose doesn’t stop there. Take them out, place thenm on a flat surface and press your index finger down on the center and slide it off and the toys come to life jumping across the room. What adds to their value is they come in a wide range of more than 30 characters and several colors, including “rare” FLIP-ITZ in silver, gold and glow-in-the-dark FLIP-ITZ.
The inventors came up with the idea when they were only 8 years old. While at a youth basketball banquet, the two bored kids started playing with the lid supports from the pizzas that were ordered for the party. Soon, every kid and parent in the room was flipping them everywhere and the boys decided this would be a great toy. Now, they are showing up in several toy stores and have been tested in pizzerias with favorable results. They even have FLIP-ITZ mini collector books to show the kids which FLIP-ITZ they do not have. A box of these was sent to our office and soon everyone here was caught up in the fun flipping them across the room all day!
They are so hot that they were featured on the front page of the February 12, 2001 issue of the Wall Street Journal and several other newspapers across the country. The boys were also invited to be on the Early Show and the Today Show and featured in a children’s magazine called Scholastic News, which is given to over one million school children.
FLIP-ITZ are already in over 1,500 independent gift shops and Zany Brainy and Learning Express toy stores and negotiations are in the works with KB Toys. There is even a FLIP-ITZ cartoon in the making. This would be a great public relations opportunity for any major pizza chain or independent operator to team up with the kid inventors, Matthew and Justin, and probably would create plenty of media attention. Imagine this, kids wanting parents to buy pizza so they can get the lid support to collect, trade and play with, then telling their friends about your pizzeria where they got them. For more information about FLIP-ITZ contact David Gantner (dgantner@itztoys.com) with ItzToys at 630-427-0356 for a quote so you can get in on the next craze to sweep the nation.
[size=5]Thank you for all the help Daddio, and I just ordered a couple boxes of funstax`at www.nminc.com. I hope I can return the favor to you in the future. By the way, this THINK TANK is really great![/size]
Daddio did you get your Fun Stax? Was the brokerage and shipping to Canada a problem?..
Royce
I got them but customs held 1/2 the order for an extra 2 weeks lucky for me it was the tees and not the hockey stax
I got mine and they are really good. I do not know if this helps, but there is a distributor shown on the sheet I got called Ricco Foods in Strathroy Canada. They only charge $19.90 Canadian for the cases of FUNstax. I am saving money on my next order of boxes too, because I am getting less expensive boxes y using lid supports. I am going to print a golf picture on my next order of flyers to do something different. Maybe even a rink next winter if my customers like the golf flyers. Hope the Ricco distributor helps and thanks for the advise to get them.
I don’t personally see the appeal to these things. Our boxes are strong enough that I don’t have to put lid supports in them to start with, so they would just be an added expense for me.
well, there are different alternatives. If you are only willing to invest 5 cents, then it HAS to be a paper product. You can go with something cheap, and VERY inexpensive but chances are it will not meet the necessary safety criteria and it would probably not be worth the time or will encourage future sales.
furthermore, I assume you are in the US, correct? The items you give away, will have to meet ASTM standards. A lot of paper goods will be exempt (stickers, cards, etc)…
Have you considered giving trading cards? You can get those fairly inexpensive now, and it is a good way to encourage repeat visits…
Scott,
On x-large and bigger pizzas or on high stack deliveries supports are needed. I think the real advantage is if you can buy lower cost boxes by using supports. The combining supports to be toys and able to do something different than the competition, I think is a great idea. I will give these a try and let you know the feedback.
Have a good 4th of July sales weekend.