Seen this box from Pizza Pizza?
The box above carried a pair of small pizzas. As I ate (and enjoyed. I won’t mock the wonder of their whole wheat crust,) it struck me how absurd and pointless the artwork is. Their boxes used to bear pictures of pizza dough and tomatoes and herbs and mushrooms, all lush and enticing. The layout said “inside this box is a lavish kingly feast. You’ll wet yourself when you see it, buddy.” This new box? Not so much.
First, the 6 pre-teen girls, good friends we’re told, eating good food.
Meh, ok. It’s no bounty of fresh green peppers, onions, and various sausages, but it shows the product and makes a point. The next panel, though:
Is she about to kiss him? Is he eyeing her, or the pizza?
I’m not sure what this panel is telling me:
And where the first image showed 6 slices, here there’s only one. That establishes the trend continued in the next panel:
The story behind this picture:
Legal: “Saw the new layout. Looks great.”
Marketing: “Shucks, thanks”
Legal: “One thing. Can you make it more, you know, ethnic? I’m thinking something in an action scene with, like, a mom and a son, where the mom’s hot with, like, those dreadlock things, and the son’s, you know, a young Tiger Woods.”
Marketing: “What does that have to do with pizza?”
Legal: “Woah, woah, we’re asking the questions here, art-boy.”
It’s a later-that-same-day moment featuring buddy from the 2nd picture. With, I guess, his mom??
This multi-cultural mess is what twigged me to the box’s asinine layout. I figure purple-shirt is Australian, which means the only continent not represented here is Antarctica. Though ask Asian Guy about Blondie the Ice Queen on the right, and he’ll say different.
My favorite thing about this shot is the absence of pizza. They’re saying “who cares how our pizza looks, you’ll have GOOD TIMES when you eat it. Don’t you like GOOD TIMES?” But then, why bother putting pictures on the box at all? It’s gotta be for advertising, right?
Thing is, the only folks who’ll see this box are guys like me in the hungry-and-lazy set, and guys like the dude who picks up my recycling. We lazy, hungry pizza-eaters are already sold on the contents of the box. Put a picture of Roseanne on the top, I’m still payin’.
So Pizza Pizza’s box is advertising to an army of Tuesday morning recycling guys:
“Gus, see that empty pizza box you just pitched in the truck?
“Did I ever”
“All them colourfully-clad randomly-cultured youths sharing platonic good times sure do make me hungry.”