In case you’re out of the know, Pizza Hut is in the process of rebranding itself. Blaming an ominous 1% drop in sales in Q4 ‘08, they’ve decided to grab destiny by the horns and reassert their marketplace dominance. How, you ask? Perhaps by returning to real cheese? No, no… with a new logo.

This article in Brandweek, in addition to introducing me to the term “home meal replacement solutions” (apparently the PC expression for takeout), quotes Pizza Hut CMO Brian Niccol (aka, Brian the Hut) with this explanation for the change:

Design is a great way to create an emotional expression for your brand. But the pizza category has been a real laggard in doing that. Our red box is a game changer in packaging and design. And yes, we’re also introducing another vocabulary word with Pizza Hut, which is ‘The Hut.’ That ties in nicely with [today's] texting generation. We wanted to make sure that Pizza Hut and ‘The Hut’ become common vernacular for our brand. Red is our mark and when you see that red roof, people will refer to it as ‘The Hut’ or ‘Pizza Hut.’ As we expand our online and mobile businesses, ‘The Hut’ is the perfect icon for our mobile generation.

Sure, sure. I’m sure a lot of harried parents rushing home (late again) to feed their progeny after a day that started 14 hours earlier pause to think, should I go with something marginally healthy or go with the one in the really bright red box? And the horde of stereotypically lethargic teenaged gamer bois might, in deciding how long to tear themselves away from Dungeon of Dorkcraft to txt 4 fud, choose the delivery service with the lowest character count.

All of which would be funnier if focus group feedback didn’t back it up. Rant against focus groups available upon request.

But, hey, who am I to ridicule somebody else’s screwball ideas. I’ve certainly had my fair share of seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time moments, at least half a dozen of which photographic evidence can be found somewhere on the internet. I have little doubt The Hut’s first quarter will be measurably better than Pizza Hut’s final quarter. After all, if you see a new logo outside it stands to reason they’ve made changes inside, right? Right??