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PCE
Hot Feature of the Future

This invention may at first appear trivial, but in reality — it is HOT.

For an example with graphics, click the photo.

The LEGS extending downward from the bottom edge of the front wall of the box elevate the box bottom above the customer's cold table top (and car seat). This prevents the heat of the pizza from conducting through the box bottom into the cold surface below, thereby keeping the pizza HOTTER for the customer to enjoy.
NOTE: The sample box in the above photo is a traditional square pizza box. However, the Legs invention is installable on virtually EVERY style of carton including the D-style box with the diagonal front corners.

If you're looking to improve both the EATING QUALITY and the CONSUMER PERCEPTION of your delivery/carry-out pizza, this patented innovation is for you — especially if your company is a regional or national chain.

PCE stands for Pizza Carton Elevation. It results from placing LEGS on a corrugated pizza carton (previously referred to as Hot-legs in a recent issue of Pizza Marketing Quarterly). Virtually any style of carton can be equipped ... including your current pizza box.

What's more, it can usually be done without raising the carton's price!

This invention contains hidden marketing power that's specially adaptable to a regional or national chain. Here's what PCE is, how it works, and why it's important.

The Six Benefits of PCE
1. Higher-quality Pizza. In a customer's home, a pizza in a non-legs carton experiences 33 percent greater heat loss than a pizza in a Legs-equipped carton. (To see an easy-to-read graph of test results, click here.) As a result, Legs yield a hotter pizza and higher-quality eating experience for your customers.

2. Improved Taste. Without Legs, the box bottom absorbs condensation that forms on a table top. To the palates of many pizza-eaters, water-soaked box bottom imparts a cardboard taste to the pizza. With Legs, the box bottom stays dry.

3. Quality Image. A package with a soggy, water-soaked bottom panel projects a low-quality image (the non-legs carton). A firm, dry carton projects a high-quality image (the Legs-equipped carton).

4. Stain and Condensation Freedom. Many customers worry about grease-stain from a pizza box. Legs keep a greasy box bottom from contacting a table top, car seat, or carpet. Also, many pizza-buyers hate the condensation that forms on a car seat or table top from contact with the bottom of the box. Legs eliminate condensation build-up, giving customers peace-of-mind.

5. Enhanced Quality Perception. Three-quarters of a century of research proves that customers' perception of a carton effects their perception of the product inside. (See How It's MORE Than Just a Box!) Combined with proper graphics, a Legs-equipped carton is capable of enhancing pizza-eaters' perception of the pizza therein.

6. Strengthened Point of Difference. For a pizza company whose point of difference is the claim to having either a hotter pizza or a better-quality pizza or a superior delivery technology, creative promotion of the Legs innovation would greatly strengthen and further solidify that point of difference within consumers' minds. Legs accomplish this by being proof, or validation, of the claim, thereby strengthening the claim in the minds of the pizza-buying public (see Differentiation-builders: The Antidote to Point-of-difference Diminution).

For a graphic example of how PCE can be used to “pound home” a company's point of difference, click here.

TO SUM UP: In cost-effective impact this innovation stands alone. It accompanies every pizza, is in view of every pizza-eater for approximately 10 minutes, and, finally, is remembered. That's because Legs on a pizza carton are eye-grabbing and unique. Every customer, every time, notices the Legs and assimilates the message associated therewith. Combined with creative graphics, a key differentiation message such as the “better-pizza” message or the “hotter-pizza” message or the “superior technology” message or the “always putting your concerns first” message is driven into the collective pizza-buyer psyche. Why would that happen? It's because Legs are visible, demonstrable, compelling proof of the veracity of the message. (For an eye-opening glimpse into the process of pizza company differentiation for competitive advantage, see Re-discovering Differentiation: Part 2.) In short, Legs are a unique, tangible, differentiating, trademarkable, advertisable, highly-memorable innovation that can provide a pizza company with an unneutralizable competitive advantage.

If you'd like to explore how PCE could be applied to your company's particular pizza carton for dramatic impact and marketing effectiveness, contact John Correll - 734-455-5830 or email john@correllconcepts.com. Very likely, we could equip your current box with PCE (or provide you with a new, enhanced PCE box concept) at no additional packaging cost to your company ... in other words, free of charge. Please note — Correll Concepts is a packaging design specialist, not a box manufacturer.