Pizza Hut offers lifetime supply of pie for presidential debate stunt

As we mentioned before, marketing campaigns tied to the election can be risky (unless your brand can find a way to remain truly neutral, which isn’t easy). Pizza Hut has joined the election-year frenzy with a smart campaign that promises a lifetime supply of pizza to whoever has the courage to stand up at next Tuesday’s town-hall-style presidential debate and ask the question on all voters’ minds: “Sausage or pepperoni?”

People who take things like “the political process” and “the future of our great nation” seriously aren’t happy with the stunt, but those same people are probably the ones who, when given the choice between five different pizzas, will opt for a slice of plain cheese.

Will it happen? Not likely, considering that the debate questions are prescreened and the question-askers are under strict orders not to deviate from the script, but it would be interesting to see how the candidates would respond to the inquiry. If they’re smart, they’ll both agree that pepperoni is the better option, but we can see at least one of them losing the election because he made a stand for mushrooms.

MARKETING LESSON: Even seemingly neutral election-based marketing campaigns have their share of critics. Oh well … it’s still a landslide victory for Pizza Hut.