Dr Oetker pizzas served in pop up Italian restaurant
By Ruth Wilson on Thursday, August 15, 2013
It’s another pop-up eaterie: 100 ‘Food Reviewers’ were invited to a new Italian restaurant in Manchester. So far, so normal, you might say – except that the freshly cooked slices being passed around with the olives were then revealed as being Dr Oetker frozen pizzas.
The resulting coverage was shaped to look like a classic piece of crisis PR in which the restaurant owner defended his actions – generating good hits in, among others, The Sun, The Huffington Post and the Daily Mail. All of which alleged that people quite liked the pizza (and got some lovely mentions for the owner’s real restaurant, which was downstairs).
The stunt was organised by Dr Oetker’s PR team at Brazen. The food bloggers involved were pretty much in on the joke as soon as they arrived as the pop up restaurant, which is staying open for a month, is fully branded. While they weren’t lavish with their praise of the food, they loved the evening (one gave it 10/10). As the brand’s target audience is probably more Sun reader than food blogger, this slice of PR (groan) seems to have hit the spot.