Literature Review

Fast food industry has emerged as one of the major industries in current era. A report published by the IBISWorld, a business intelligence leader that specialises in Industry Market research & procurement stated that the global revenue of considered industry is $651 billion and employees over 11.9 million people (“Global Fast Food Restaurants. Industry Market Research Reports, Trends, Statistics, Data, Forecasts”, 2018). The above discussed figures are mostly lead by certain industrial leaders such as the McDonalds, KFC, Dominos, Pizza Hut and others. To maintain the position of competitive leader the fast food firms are adopting different disruptive tools and technologies. One of such technology is the digital marketing.

Digital Marketing enables the user to do marketing using the digital technology. Multiple digital marketing tools have been made available by different platforms to support the firms in attaining a high level of marketing. Some of the most prominent tools are social media marketing tools such as Facebook Power Editor, Twitter Native, Nanigans and others. Email digital marketing tools such as MailChimp, Emma, Marketo and others are also offering support to the digital marketing. Similarly, multiple other platforms apart from social media and email marketing are available that includes retargeting tools, programmatic advertising tools, website changing tools, video hosting sites and many other types. However, not all the fast food industry has been able to leverage the technology and one of such industry is Pizza Hut. The image attached below shows a comparison between the market share of Dominos and Pizza Hut in Australia.

Hence, the aim of the paper is to propose a research work is identification and assessment of the factors that are limiting the use of digital marketing in the Pizza Hut. A background of the subject of research work have been provided along with problem statement that had been succeeded by the research aim and objectives. A justification for the selection of the discussed topic has also been offered along with the potential outcome. A conceptual framework has also been provided to reflect the current status of literary work available on the subject of discussion. The proposed methodology for pursuing research aim and objectives have also been discussed that have been succeeded by a discussion on the research plan (including budget and timeline) to conclude the paper.

A research by Heart Foundation of Australia, a charitable health organisation has stated that Australian spend over $7.16 billion annual on fast food (“Aussies spending more than $7.16 billion on fast foods every year”, 2016). Pizza Hut being one of the leading pizza brand still contributes only 10.7 % in the pizza Market of Australia (“Australia – market share of leading pizza takeaway companies 2016 Statista”, 2017). The image attached below makes it evident where, the share of Yum! Restaurants Australia Pty Limited (parent firm of Pizza Hut) is shown along with other leaders of pizza industry.

Research Methodology

Several reasons are associated with the low market share of the subject (Pizza Hut) and some of them is less interaction with the public, exploitation, underpayment, adoption of technological advancement and similar others (Fernyhough, 2018). One of the most dominant of them is the digital adoption (Harley, 2015). Hence, becomes of great prominence to identify the factors that are associated with the limited use of digital tools and technologies in Pizza Hut. Only one aspect of the digital adoption that is the digital marketing will be considered as part of the proposed research work. The selection of the digital marketing could be justified by the fact that an organisation can adopt digital solutions for many operations, however, assessing all of them together will prove to be complex and hence, only one operation has been considered.

The primary aim of the proposed research work is to identify the digital marketing strategy of the Pizza Hut and reasons why Pizza Hut is failing to adopt proper digital marketing. The primary aim of the paper will be supported by some secondary objectives and they have been listed as follow:

1. To determine the factors that are limiting or making the digital marketing ineffective by the subject.
2. To determine the need of digital marketing for improving the sales and eventually market share of Pizza hut in Australia.

The product offered by Pizza Hut are one of the best and some of them are absolute best and hence, it is crucial that the firm should sustain in long run to satisfy the Australian market. Furthermore, researching on the firm and its weak digital marketing will enable the readers and the author as well to understand the importance along with the prominence that digital marketing is capable of offering to a firm. It will enable others firms to understand the crucial importance of digital marketing in gaining or maintaining competitive leadership in the market. The factors crucial for leveraging digital marketing can also be identify taking the proposed research work as a background. It will also pave way for academic researchers to conduct future studies that are aimed at mitigating the threat that is faced by the subject. Moreover, it will even motivate the researchers to undertake similar projects that will assist different organisations to develop a sustainability strategy for themselves.

The research proposal will identify the reasons and factors behind the limited or ineffective adoption of digital marketing strategy of Pizza Hut and at the end of the research work it will provide certain outcomes and the most potential of them are:

1. The factors that are restricting the subject from leveraging the digital marketing.
2. The reasons that deem need for digital marketing to succeed in the competitive market.

• A rough background for factors that are crucial for leveraging the digital marketing.

Digital Marketing has emerged as one of the crucial forms of marketing for the organisations in the recent times (Ryan, 2018). The digital marketing refers to the marketing of a brand or product, services using the digital tools. The digital tool can expand from social media platform to emails and other digital means (Chaffey & Smith, 2013). Since, its inception the marketing mode have witnessed a major surge in the number of adopters. The reason for this massive surge is associated with the benefits that is offered by the digital marketing (Tiago & Verissimo, 2014).

Data Analysis and Findings

Opportunities presented by Digital Marketing are vast and the most prominent of them is the ability to reach even to the most remote audience. Even though a firm cannot reach a remote region but still the expansion of internet has enabled them to market their product to those regions (Karjaluoto, Mustonen & UlKuniemi, 2015). Furthermore, the resource and capital utilisation that the digital marketing offers over it traditional means is also a factor to be considered (Taiminen, 2016). The saved resources can be used for improving the quality of the product and in the case broaden the consumer base with a high level of satisfaction. Another notable opportunity posed by the technology is chance to formulate bonds with the customers (Stephen, 2016). The direct and frequent communication assists in development of bonds with the customers that can be further extended by collaborating with other technology or brands (Kannan, 2017). Collaborating enables the brands to offer different offers to the consumers as a felicitation that develops a loyalty of the customer towards the firm.

Constraints of digital marketing are also key findings identified from the literary works and it includes several factors. Some of the most prominent of them includes engaging & efficient contents, consistency of marketing, addressing of gaps, lack of integration, technological & skill challenges and others (Leeflang, Verhoef, Dahlstrom and Freundt, 2014). The discussed factors restrict the leveraging of the digital marketing.

Pizza Hut weaknesses include multiple factor that even includes less use of technological development for its operations (Rao, Sarkar & Bohra, 2016). Different researches have made it evident that technology is capable of enhancing a firm’s performance and in the process offering them a sustainable future. The technological adoption can extend from management information system to use of digital tools in reaching out to the customers (Hopp & Gangadharbatla, 2016). Hence, one of the prominent reason for Pizza Hut in losing its competitive leadership to Domino is the fact that the former has provided inadequate attention to its technological skills and capabilities.

Hence, based on the discussion above the hypothesis for the research project work can be developed and the hypothesis for the work will be

Null Hypothesis (H₀): Pizza Hut does not provide proper attention to engaging & efficient contents, consistency of marketing, addressing of gaps, lack of integration, technological & skill challenges and others to improve the efficiency of digital marketing.

Hypothesis 1 (H₁): Pizza Hut does provide proper attention to engaging & efficient contents, consistency of marketing, addressing of gaps, lack of integration, technological & skill challenges and others to improve the efficiency of digital marketing.

Conclusion

To attain the research aim and objectives of the proposed work the following measures will be adopted:

1. LiteratureReview will be done to identify the current status of knowledge available on the topic of discussion and based on the findings and identified patterns the questionnaire for the collection of quantitative data will be developed.
2. Population targeted for the proposed research work will be the commoners who are pizza lovers will be targeted along with those who are currently working with Pizza Hut for quantitative data collection. The pizza lovers group will be selected from different socialmedia group that are dedicated to pizza lovers of Australia along with the colleagues of the researcher who love eating pizzas. For qualitative data collection professionals of digital marketing and high officials of Pizza Hut will be selected.

• Sampling of the data will be done based on Random Sampling methods and a sample size of 150will be considered for quantitative data collection. For the qualitative data collection, a sample size of 20 people will be considered of which 15 will be experts in the field of marketing, market analysis and other relevant fields it may even include the educators who train their students regarding the marketing tools and techniques. The remaining 5 will be the high officials of the Pizza Hut.

1. Data Collection for the quantitative data will be done through an online questionnaire that will be distributed among the selected population. The questionnairewill be developed on Google Forms. It will offer closed end questions so that quantitative data is collected. For the qualitative data collection interviews will be conducted that can be done over VoIP (Voice over IP) or face-to-face depending upon the comfort of respondent (Lange & Saric, 2016). As part of the VoIP, only video calls, audio calls and instant messaging will be considered.
2. Data Analysiswill be done separately for qualitative and quantitative data types. For qualitative data analysis ground theory analysis and framework analysis will be done. While for the quantitative data analysis one-way ANOVA (Analysis of Variables), T Test and descriptive analysis using cross tabulation and frequency tables will be done. The selection of ANOVA test can be justified by the fact that it is employed to analyse the effects of manipulation of one variable on other (Zebala & Kowalczyk, 2015). The findings will derive certain variable and that needs to be assessed to get on a conclusion. For the paper digital marketing will be independent variable and other factors identified will be the dependent variable over which the analysis will be done.

The final report will be organised in the following structure:

Chapter One will outline and establish base for the project. It will define the digital marketing and introduce challenges with the Pizza Hut along with offering an insight into other crucial aspects. The research aim and objectives will also be discussed as part of this section

Chapter two will detail literary work to identify the current status of knowledge that is available on the topic of discussion.

Chapter three will detail the research methodology and how the research work have been conducted. It will detail, the analysis techniques, ethical considerations, research design and other crucial aspects.

Chapter four will be aimed at analysing the data and deriving the findings that can be summarised to conclude on the findings.

Chapter five will detail the findings and discuss over it to link them with the research objectives. It will also conclude the project by summarising all the findings and measures as part of conclusion.

The budget estimated for the proposed research work is $ 5,300 and it will be completed within a period of 85 Days that have been shown in the Gantt Chart. It has been attempted that the budget and time schedule are in context with the academic requirement and within the capacity of the author of the proposed work.

The budget allotted to different activities have been specified in the following points:

LiteratureReview: The discussed activity has been assigned with a budget of $ 1300 because the journals, articles and other reliable papers that will be reviewed from the internet and not all sources are available free of cost. Hence, a budget of $ 1300 have been allowed so that no vital literary knowledge is ignored due to limited budget.

Data Collection: The data for the proposed research work will be collected through both qualitative and quantitative means. The quantitative data will be collected through google forms that are available for free, however, the qualitative data may need the author to travel and other expensive activities and hence will account some expenses and hence the budget.

Data Analysis: It is the most prominent step and hence, it is crucial to carry this step with great accuracy and it has been stated above that ANOVA and T Test will be done to analysis the data making it crucial to have a reliable statistical tool. IBM SPSS is considered for the analysis and will costs $ 135.14 per month and will be used for at least a period of 2 months. Additionally, the statistical tool for storing the data will also be needed for which MS EXCEL will be considered. Other expenses will also be involved and hence the budget has been allowed.

Miscellaneous: Other expenses might arise during the period of research work and hence, a contingency amount of $ 300 has been considered so that the project can be completed within time and with accuracy without any interruption.

Purpose	Estimated Budget
Literature Review	$ 1,300
Data Collection	$ 2,200
Data Analysis	$ 1,500
Miscellaneous	$ 300
Total Budget	$ 5,300

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors
Digital Marketing in Pizza Hut	85 days	Mon 03-09-18	Thu 27-12-18
Phase 1: Initialisation	17 days	Mon 03-09-18	Tue 25-09-18
Topic selection	2 days	Mon 03-09-18	Tue 04-09-18
Background establishment	5 days	Wed 05-09-18	Tue 11-09-18	3
Brainstorming	2 days	Wed 12-09-18	Thu 13-09-18	4
Preliminary review	4 days	Fri 14-09-18	Wed 19-09-18	5
Conceptual Framework	2 days	Thu 20-09-18	Fri 21-09-18	6
Research objectives and questions	2 days	Mon 24-09-18	Tue 25-09-18	7
Phase 2: Planning	9 days	Wed 26-09-18	Sat 06-10-18
Timeline	5 days	Wed 26-09-18	Tue 02-10-18	8
Budget	3 days	Wed 03-10-18	Fri 05-10-18	10
Draft Completed	0 days	Fri 05-10-18	Fri 05-10-18	11
Proposal Submission	1 day	Sat 06-10-18	Sat 06-10-18	12
Phase 3: Execution	33 days	Mon 08-10-18	Wed 21-11-18
Literature review	7 days	Mon 08-10-18	Tue 16-10-18	13
Summarising Literature finding	5 days	Wed 17-10-18	Tue 23-10-18	15
Developing questionnaire	2 days	Wed 24-10-18	Thu 25-10-18	16
Collection of Quantitative data	5 days	Fri 26-10-18	Thu 01-11-18	17
Summarising Quantitative data	3 days	Fri 02-11-18	Tue 06-11-18	18
Collection of Qualitative data	6 days	Wed 07-11-18	Wed 14-11-18	19
Summarising Qualitative Data	5 days	Thu 15-11-18	Wed 21-11-18	20
Phase 4: Analysis	15 days	Thu 22-11-18	Wed 12-12-18
Summarising all data	6 days	Thu 22-11-18	Thu 29-11-18	16,19,21
Concluding	4 days	Fri 30-11-18	Wed 05-12-18	23
Report Development	5 days	Thu 06-12-18	Wed 12-12-18	24
Report Completed	0 days	Wed 12-12-18	Wed 12-12-18	24,25
Phase 5: Closure	11 days	Thu 13-12-18	Thu 27-12-18
Submission of Report	1 day	Thu 13-12-18	Thu 13-12-18	25
Oral Presentation	10 days	Fri 14-12-18	Thu 27-12-18	28

References

Aussies spending more than $7.16 billion on fast foods every year. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/news/aussies-spending-more-than-7.16-billion-on-fast-foods-every-year

Australia – market share of leading pizza takeaway companies 2016 I Statista. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/627106/australia-major-players-pizza-restaurant-and-takeaway-establishments/

Chaffey, D., & Smith, P. R. (2013). eMarketing eXcellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing. Routledge.

Fernyhough, J. (2018). How Domino’s crushed Pizza Hut to become king of takeaway. Retrieved from https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2018/07/20/dominos-crushed-pizza-hut/

Global Fast Food Restaurants. Industry Market Research Reports, Trends, Statistics, Data, Forecasts. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/global-industry-reports/hotels-restaurants/fast-food-restaurants.html

Hartley, S. (2015). Domino’s dominate with digital design. Busidate, 23(3), 2.

Hopp, T., & Gangadharbatla, H. (2016). Examination of the factors that influence the technological adoption intentions of tomorrow’s new media producers: A longitudinal exploration. Computers in Human behavior, 55, 1117-1124.

Kannan, P. K. (2017). Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(1), 22-45.

Karjaluoto, H., Mustonen, N., & Ulkuniemi, P. (2015). The role of digital channels in industrial marketing communications. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 30(6), 703-710.

Lange, M. R., & Saric, A. (2016). Substitution between fixed, mobile, and voice over IP telephony–Evidence from the European Union. Telecommunications Policy, 40(10-11), 1007-1019.

Leeflang, P. S., Verhoef, P. C., Dahlström, P., & Freundt, T. (2014). Challenges and solutions for marketing in a digital era. European management journal, 32(1), 1-12.

Rao, S., Sarkar, P., & Bohra, S. (2016). A Comparative Study on the Perceptions of Service Quality of Domino’s and Pizza Hut in Manipal.

Ryan, D. (2016). Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.

Stephen, A. T. (2016). The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 10, 17-21.

Taiminen, H. (2016). One gets what one orders: Utilisation of digital marketing tools. The Marketing Review, 16(4), 389-404.

Tiago, M. T. P. M. B., & Veríssimo, J. M. C. (2014). Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), 703-708.

Tribiana1&2, G. A., & Dimaculangan, E. D. (2014). AWARENESS, RECALL AND ATTITUDES OF PIZZA HUT CONSUMERS TOWARD DIGITAL ADVERTISING.

Z?bala, W., & Kowalczyk, R. (2015). Estimating the effect of cutting data on surface roughness and cutting force during WC-Co turning with PCD tool using Taguchi design and ANOVA analysis. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 77(9-12), 2241-2256.