Best case press relations and influencers: Pizzou

The 100% Made in France pizzeria Pizzou entrusted us with the management of its press and influencer relations. The results are clear: by focusing on high visibility in the traditional media and on the social accounts of relevant influencers, the restaurant has built up a powerful reputation that today enables it to sell out almost all its services.

Pizzou opened its doors in June 2018 with a positioning that's atypical, to say the least: a 100% Made in France pizzeria. Indeed, the founders of Pizzou - Damien, Louis, Rémy and Vivien - asked themselves why cross the Alps when France abounds in quality products, perfect for making and topping pizzas. With no answer to their question, they decided to open Pizzou: the 1st pizzeria to source its ingredients exclusively from France!

This is not the first time the gang has worked together. Before Pizzou, the four boys opened Les Pinces, the famous Parisian chain offering affordable lobster, for which we optimize social media and referencing on a daily basis. Eager to embark on a new project together, and with an unconditional love of pizza, they decided to open Pizzou.

And they were right! The gamble paid off: 6 months after opening, the restaurant is sold out at almost every service... What accounts for this success? Pizzou's strong presence in the traditional media and on social media. Malou was in charge of the restaurant's press and influencer relations for 5 months. Here we explain how, with the help of journalists and influencers, we succeeded in ensuring Pizzou's visibility and notoriety, and how we helped the four boys to acquire a first wave of customers, whom they have managed to retain thanks to the quality of their service!

1) Build Pizzou's storytelling to prepare press and influencer relations: highlight the little stories behind the project

Before contacting media professionals to present the restaurant, it's important to think about the arguments that really differentiate Pizzou, and that might encourage journalists, bloggers and influencers to come and try it out. In other words, we built the storytelling for the pizzeria and formalized it in two essential documents: the press kit and the press release. They present the restaurant as exhaustively as possible, its history, its characters, and its promises to its customers. Here are the ones we decided to highlight for Pizzou:

Promise 1: rediscover pizza thanks to 100% Made in France

With 754 million pizzas consumed in France in 2017, 33% of which were enjoyed in restaurants and 29% taken away or delivered, the market is particularly competitive. But Pizzou has a strong concept: the restaurant offers to reinvent pizza more present than ever in Paris. This concept defines Pizzou, and therefore had to be at the heart of its communication strategy: it's the first promise made to the restaurant's customers: to live an offbeat, unique experience, allowing them to rediscover a product they think they know by heart.

This promise could not be made without highlighting the quality of the products used by the restaurant. Each of the products used in Pizzou's pizzas has its own story to tell, and each deserved to be mentioned in the press kit. We therefore created the map below , the main aim of which was to be transparent with the reader by presenting the origin of each of the products.

But it seemed impossible to talk about the products without mentioning the producers and the relationship between them and the founders of Pizzou. So the press kit we've put together takes journalists and influencers on a tour of France to meet the best French producers.

By featuring Fabio, the Italian-born (but Yvelines-based) cheese producer who delivers Pizzou's cheeses every day, we wanted to satisfy two objectives: to maintain a relationship of trust with the reader, and to illustrate our message in such a way as to bring the press kit to life.

Promise 2: enjoy an eco-responsible pizza

The second promise made to readers, which ties in with the first in many respects, is that of enjoying an eco-responsible pizza. Offering a 100% French pizza avoids the need to transport far-flung products, guarantees customers greater freshness (as Fabio's little story once again attests), enables the constant renewal of the menu, which evolves with the seasons, and provides greater transparency (customers can find out where each product comes from).

Promise 3: enter the world of our four founder-friends

To humanize Pizzou, the press kit focuses on the beautiful story of friendship behind the creation of the pizzeria. Damien, Louis, Rémy and Vivien met at school and never left each other's side. They took up the challenge of opening one, then two, then three affordable lobster restaurants in Paris. After a few years of successful business, they decided to embark on a new adventure and opened a restaurant in homage to their favorite dish: pizza.

This beautiful story of friendship has enabled us to give the restaurant a face. Pizzou is seen not just as a place, but as a project driven by a group of four ambitious, friendly and passionate friends. Throughout the press kit, it's their story that we've tried to tell, their desires and ambitions that we've presented.

These are the people who embody Pizzou in this press kit, and their friendship is at the heart of the project.

Promise 4: put people first

Reading the press kit, readers are invited to imagine Pizzou as a place where you can talk to the creators and the teams in the dining room. This is the fourth promise: at Pizzou, the customer can ask where the products come from, can discuss the pizza dough recipe, can ask about the producers with whom the team works... In short, this 100% French pizzeria is presented throughout the pages of the press kit as a space in which exchange is at the heart of the project, in which the welcome will be personalized, warm and passionate.

Promise 5: enjoy a unique pizza, a 100% Pizzou pizza

In our press kit, we emphasized that the pizzas you taste at Pizzou are unique. Vivien, one of the four founders, attended the French pizza-making school. Thanks to this training, he was able to come up with his own pizza dough recipe.

At Pizzou, the customer doesn't taste a Neapolitan or Roman pizza, but a Pizzou pizza with its own recipe, designed to be both crisp and soft.

Promise 6: enjoy great pizzas in a trendy venue steeped in history

The location, too, deserved its own history. We therefore emphasized the fact that the restaurant was housed in a former laundrette in the Pigalle district. For the sake of authenticity, the founders of Pizzou wanted to preserve a wall of this former space, on which it is still possible today to read tags from the era. The little story behind the big story of Pizzou is highlighted to add an extra personal touch and arouse the reader's curiosity.

Added to this is the promise of a bright, warm, trendy and atypical place where plants fall from the ceiling, where the mezzanine overlooks a room flooded with light from a large glass roof, where you can discover a kitschy and trendy neon pink.

Promise 7: Eat quality products on a small budget

Finally, the last promise we make to readers in this press kit is to enjoy Pizzou at a very low price.

Each of these promises harmoniously articulates the story of Pizzou in an effective storytelling that makes you want to give it a try. The meeting with Fabio reassures us of the freshness of the products, the presentation of the band of friends and their story of friendship puts a face on this restaurant project and makes the place feel warm, the story of the old laundry enhances the authenticity of the place and its atypical character...

Press kit visual identity in line with the restaurant's identity

But the content of this press kit and the stories it presents had no chance of meeting the public they deserved without a carefully crafted presentation.

[caption id="attachment_4625" align="aligncenter" width="814"]

Cover of the Pizzou press release[/caption].

For a press kit to be successful, it's essential that its visuals are consistent with the restaurant's identity. The restaurant's childlike name and adorable, smiling pizza logos guided our graphic choices. So we opted for :

• a round, soft font that evokes the world of childhood,
• for simple, reassuring colors echoing the logos,
• for a clean, luminous design in keeping with the location.

This press kit, with its well thought-out form and content, enabled us to make contact with journalists and bloggers, and to get enthusiastic feedback from them.

2) Tailor-made press relations to ensure high-quality media coverage

Personalized contact for each journalist and blogger

For 5 months, we used these press kits and press releases to invite journalists and bloggers to discover Pizzou. But these documents weren't enough on their own. Getting in touch with these media professionals isn't easy. Inundated with messages and solicitations of all kinds on a daily basis, journalists don't open all the e-mails they receive. So it's important to think about what will make them open our e-mail among the hundreds of others they receive.

That's why, throughout our mission, we paid particular attention to personalizing the messages we sent to journalists. Our first task was to find out which media were most relevant to Pizzou. Once the media had been identified, we had to find the right contacts, and therefore the journalists who would write about Food topics. Finally, we spent a great deal of time understanding who our contact was: the themes he usually tackles (this allows us to envisage what generally interests him in the projects he writes about), the latest articles he's written, his background... These are just some of the questions we asked ourselves about each of the journalists we contacted.

This information enabled us to get to know the people we were targeting, and to tailor the messages we sent them. The storytelling work we had done beforehand enabled us to evaluate the different arguments we could put forward to encourage professionals to come and discover Pizzou.

So, if a journalist tended to be interested in environmental issues, we would focus our message on the second promise above. If a journalist was more interested in new, trendy Parisian addresses, we would then advance the first and sixth promises by proposing the discovery of an atypical place. If a journalist was interested in start-ups, success stories and more economic issues, we'd present a portrait of this group of talented friends, all graduates of business school and already with 4 renowned Parisian establishments to their credit.

An invitation for two for each of them

The main aim of these contacts was to bring journalists to Pizzou. To this end, the founding team agreed to invite each of them to lunch or dinner, and to give them the opportunity to come accompanied. These practices, common in the industry, facilitate the arrival of media professionals, but in no way imply any obligation on the part of the editorial team. If the service and meal do not live up to the guest's expectations, he or she has every right to refuse to devote an article to the establishment.

However, these unsuccessful visits are not useless: they enable us to obtain valuable advice from professionals who are used to judging catering establishments, and who always offer excellent advice.

But, as you'll see, there were few disappointments at Pizzou. On the contrary, we've had excellent feedback, thanks to the quality of the service in the dining room and the quality of Pizzou's pizzas.

The Pizzou restaurant: quality spinoffs build reputation

We very quickly obtained excellent and varied coverage for Pizzou. The national daily press (Le Figaro, BFMTv...), certain radio stations (France Bleu, Sud Radio), trendy Parisian media (Anousparis, Doitinparis, Merci Alfred), the women's press (Glamour, MyLittleParis, Marie Claire...), the specialized restaurant press (Gilles Pudlowski, Atabula...).... All these rich and varied media have enabled us to reach a wide audience, and to establish Pizzou as one of the new Parisian addresses not to be missed.

Pizzou restaurant ranked by journalists as one of the best pizzerias in Paris

Just a few weeks after opening, Pizzou was already appearing in numerous awards lists for the best pizzerias in Paris. The restaurant quickly established itself as a competitor to some of the most famous pizzerias in Paris, such as Dalmata and the Big Mamma group.

GQ ranked Pizzou as one of its 5 favorite pizzerias, and as one of the pizzerias that "makes it forget Dominos". Marie Claire called it one of the 10 pizzerias that "make her forget Big Mamma". Sortiraparis defined Pizzou as one of the 10 best Italian restaurants in the capital.

Pizzou recognized as a quality restaurant by the most strategic trade media

Le Foodingwhich publishes an annual guide to the best places to eat in France, devoted an article to Pizzou. The same goes for Figaroscope and DoItInParis. One of the reasons why these media are so important for restaurateurs is thatthey award labels that restaurants can display (proudly!) in their restaurant windows. This not only attracts the attention of passers-by, but also wins the confidence of people who are still hesitant to visit an unfamiliar place.

These spin-offs are therefore particularly important because they can be optimized over a very long period.

Pizzou restaurant recognized as an innovative player in gastronomy

There's no longer any doubt that Pizzou has succeeded in forging a strong reputation for itself. The proof? Media such as BFM or even Konbini contacted us to cover offbeat topics such as the importance of Instagram for restaurants (BFM) or the pizza revival in Paris (Konbini). Although these articles don't deal directly with Pizzou and don't present the address in detail, they are nevertheless excellent news for the establishment: it means that the journalists see it as an emblematic player in the sector, representative of developments in the restaurant market.

Pizzou turns media into ambassadors

Finally, some media were convinced by the restaurant and published several articles about it.AnousParis, for example, devoted three articles to the restaurant. Two of them included the restaurant in their lists of the best restaurants in Paris, or their good weekend deals, and the last one gave a detailed presentation of the establishment.

By publishing several articles on the same restaurant, these media vouch for the quality of the service and products, and become real ambassadors for the place.

Convincing figures

The results are clear : Pizzou has established itself in the eyes of journalists as one of the must-try places in Paris. Pizzou's success has made more than one journalist salivate, and many readers, listeners and Internet users have written to Pizzou, telling them that they'd like to try the pizzas.

In the space of 5 months , the restaurant has accumulated a total of around 100 media coverage. The total audience for all this media coverage is over 259,500,000 readers, listeners and socionauts combined. If Pizzou had bought the advertising space on the media as an advertorial, it would have cost over €400,000... (far more than our fees).

Today, traditional media coverage is not the only way for restaurants to raise their profile. We have also activated our network of influencers so that Pizzou can build its reputation and become a benchmark in the eyes of an ever-widening public.

3) Influencers: a powerful visibility lever for the Pizzou restaurant

The effectiveness of influencer marketing has been proven. The proximity that influencers maintain with their audience gives them a particularly strong credibility and power of recommendation. Long perceived as amateurs having fun on social media, influencers are now seen by marketing and communications professionals as privileged partners.

Aware of these developments and the power these new players in the media world have acquired, we've combined our press relations work with influencer marketing, and it's proved to be a winning combination. Here's how and why.

Our approach to influencer relations

At Malou, we see influencer relations as a logical extension of press relations. They help the restaurant gain visibility in the media, with a younger audience than most of the so-called traditional media (print, online, radio and TV). Ensuring a greater presence for Pizzou on social media helped us to reinforce the restaurant's credibility in the eyes of journalists: seeing the web give it prominence, their curiosity was heightened, and so was their desire to come and discover the restaurant. The reverse is obviously true: the more the media talk about a place, the more the influencers want to come and make up their own minds.

The organization of an influencer evening at the Pizzou restaurant

To ensure that Pizzou had a strong presence on Instagram from the very first month, we at Malou decided to organize an influencer evening a few weeks after the opening. We asked the founders to make the restaurant private for one evening, and invited the most relevant influencers to come and discover Pizzou.

More than 30 influencers had the chance to discover all the pizzas then on the menu, Pizzou's house drinks, wines, desserts... They all played along and posted stories and photos of the place or the pizzas on their Instagram accounts...

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Some of the Instagram posts published by Influencers on the occasion of the Pizzou evening

The result: the numerous publications attracted the curiosity not only of socionauts, but also of influencers not present at the event, who came to try out the restaurant afterwards, as evidenced by this comment left on the Knockers social account.

Another highlight: Pizzou's Instagram account tripled its weekly audience in just one week.

Last but not least, Pizzou recorded its best ever sales since the restaurant opened, including Fridays and Saturdays, the day after the Tuesday influencer evening . This is further proof of the recommendation power of influencers, and the real impact they have on a restaurant's visibility and reputation.

Daily contact with relevant influencers

Following this event, we continued our efforts and contacted the most relevant influencers for Pizzou, i.e. the influencers with communities closest to the restaurant's core target, with a high engagement rate and regularly publishing food content(find out more here our tips for selecting the most relevant influencers for your influencer marketing campaigns, and for detecting fake influencers). Here's an example of three collaborations we've established for Pizzou:

• The NoDietClub the totally crazy influencers with extremely high engagement rates

For example, we contacted NoDietClub, which has a community of almost 15,000 subscribers and generates between 500 and 1,000 likes on its publications. The street-food-loving duo agreed to come and discover the pizzeria, and were not disappointed! They loved it, so they published a very long story about their experience, as well as a photo to which they added a particularly enthusiastic description.

The publication has been liked over 1,100 times and has over 40 comments. This gave the restaurant considerable visibility and attracted many customers to Pizzou (confirmed by Vivien, one of the founders). The collaboration was all the more interesting in that the wacky duo came back several times, each time publishing posts, and suggested that the restaurant integrate it into the tour it organizes on AirbnbExperience. As a result, Pizzou is now one of the establishments featured by NoDietClub on its tours of the best fast-food restaurants in Paris with tourists and gourmands.

• Callmevoyou the influencer with regrammed photos

Influencer Nina, from the Callmevoyou account, also came to Pizzou following one of our requests. Delighted by Pizzou's signature pizzas, she posted a quality photo on her social account (note that Nina won an award at the 2017 Influencer Festival for one of her Food photos).

This publication was liked more than 1,200 times and commented on more than 60 times. More importantly, the photo was regrammed (i.e. shared on Instagram) by the @topparisresto account, which has over 132,000 followers on the platform. The regrammed publication was liked more than 1,500 times.

• Aurorefrg, the influencer turned Pizzou ambassador

We contacted influencer @aurorefrg, a sports addict and pizza fan with an audience of 20,000 followers on her Instagram account. On her first visit, the verdict was clear: she loved it and decided to make the pizzeria her HQ. Since then, it could be said that the sportswoman has become an ambassador for the restaurant, much to the delight of Pizzou, star of several of the influencer's stories and posts.

The results of Pizzou's influencer marketing: convincing figures for the restaurant

In total, nearly 120 collaborations were set up for Pizzou (stories and posts combined), more than 40,000 interactions were counted on the various publications made by influencers and nearly 2,000,000 people in total were potentially reached on social media.

In a nutshell,

At Malou, we are convinced that press relations and Influence marketing must be thought out together, and intelligently articulated to create maximum value. A good press relations strategy won't have the same impact if it isn't backed up by the high visibility created by Influence marketing. Conversely, a well thought-out Influence marketing strategy will not have the same impact without the notoriety afforded by press relations.

By working on both fronts, we succeeded in raising the profile of the Pizzou restaurant, which in just a few months became a household name. Today, Pizzou has a full house, its services are always full and the restaurant attracts an ever-increasing number of curious gourmets.It has established itself as one of Pigalle's, and indeed Paris's, must-visit addresses, and after just three months of operation has even made it into the Top 50 most-added addresses on Mapstr, the famous map that lists the best addresses in Paris.

Now all the restaurant has to do is win the loyalty of customers who've already been won over, and establish a relevant, high-impact community management strategy.

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