Pizza Hut perfume: Yes, it's real

Pizza Hut perfume, which started out as a joke, is now being produced in limited quantities in Canada. The Pizza Hut perfume 'boasts top notes of freshly baked, hand-tossed dough.'

|
Pizza Hut Canada
The Pizza Hut perfume, shown in this promotional photo from Pizza Hut Canada, is supposed to recreate the smell of a box of Pizza Hut being opened, with top notes of freshly baked dough, according to the company.

No matter which way you slice it (sorry), Pizza Hut has long been an innovator in the pizza industry: The chain gave the world stuffed crust, after all.

But now Pizza Hut is channeling its creative streak into other ventures, releasing its own Pizza Hut perfume.

“Introducing Pizza Hut Perfume – a brand new fragrance from Pizza Hut Canada boasting top notes of freshly baked, hand-tossed dough,” reads the press release from Pizza Hut and Yum! Brands

Appropriately enough, it began as a joke: Pizza Hut Canada’s marketing firm, Grip Limited, posted a tongue-in-cheek Facebook post on the Pizza Hut Canada fan page, asking, “Do you love the smell of a box of Pizza Hut pizza being opened? We thought so. If that smell was a perfume, what would it be called?”

Thousands responded, some requesting a bottle of Pizza Hut perfume for themselves. And so it was.

“The limited edition perfume was designed to commemorate Pizza Hut Canada reaching 100,000 Facebook fans,” the release reads. “Only 110 bottles were produced and shared with lucky Facebook fans who won a bottle by being among the first to share their desire for Pizza Hut perfume.”

“Will we be seeing Pizza Hut perfume in department stores any time soon? Only time will tell,” it goes on.

The Pizza Hut perfume continues the US-based chain’s habit of saving its boldest creations for customers abroad: It launched a Hot Dog crust pizza in Europe earlier this year, and a cheeseburger crust pizza, called the “Crown Crust Burger Pizza," in the Middle East soon after. In Japan, Pizza Hut offers a seafood-laden concoction called the Winter Double King Pizza, complete with crab and shrimp.

Yum! Brands, Pizza Hut’s parent company, has made a habit of these head-scratching products, giving US customers both the KFC Double Down (a sandwich in which the “bread” is two chicken breasts) and the Taco Bell Doritos Locos Taco (the taco shell is, more or less, a giant Dorito).

But is the Pizza Hut Perfume as daring and original as those food based offerings? Perhaps not. As some around the web have pointed out, Burger King did the perfume gag way back in 2008. Via its ad agency, Crispin Porter+Bogusky, the burger chain launched “Flame by BK,” a body spray for men that smelled like grilled meat. “Flame” was briefly available for the holidays in select Burger King locations for $3.99.

So Pizza Hut Perfume may not be the fast food innovator’s most innovative offering. But since it’s the holidays and all, let’s put aside the cries of copycat for now. There’s plenty of room in the world for two fast-food scented perfumes.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Pizza Hut perfume: Yes, it's real
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/1205/Pizza-Hut-perfume-Yes-it-s-real
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe