Battle of the Brands: Domino’s vs Pizza Hut

The final pair of brands that we analyse in the Food edition of Talkwalker’s Battle of the Brands are fast food brands Domino’s and Pizza Hut - both are household names for the pizza consumer in India. Which of the two brands stands out in online conversations? And what is the consumer’s experience of each brand? 

Talkwalker is the leading consumer intelligence acceleration platform, helping over 2,500 brands drive business impact with actionable consumer insights. The Battle of the Brands series utilises Talkwalker’s AI-enabled Blue Silk technology to demonstrate how to conduct a competitor analysis across millions of images, videos, audio, conversations, and tags from across social media, blogs, news channels, and more. Providing a bird’s eye view of mentions, engagement, and sentiment surrounding some of the biggest brands in India today.

Mentions and engagements

When it comes to online mentions across India, Pizza Hut takes the majority in comparison with Domino’s. However, not all of these results indicated positive regard for the pizza brand - 18% of Pizza Hut-related mentions in India were informed by backlash in February 2022 (the highest blue peak in the graph), following a Kashmir Solidarity Day campaign run by Pizza Hut Pakistan.

On the other hand, while the Domino’s brand records less mentions, it has higher overall engagement across online conversations in the same period - meaning more likes, comments and shares. In fact, the Domino’s brand recorded nearly twice the number of engagements (221K), in comparison to the Pizza Hut brand (132K). We reveal what was fuelling the online conversations around both brands, in the sections below.

Theme cloud: Emojis

It’s evident from the theme cloud alone, that pizza elicits a range of emotions from the consumer. The emoji theme cloud also reveals pizza’s popularity amongst sporting fans, with over 500 posts including the cricket bat emoji, 400 tagging a silver medal, and more than 300 posts including stadiums and soccer balls. 

This affinity with sports is encouraged by both pizza brands. Domino’s launched its #DominosFreeHits campaign during the India vs. Pakistan IPL match in October 2021, receiving at least 11K hits on the night of the match alone. Pizza Hut launched its #MomoMia partnership with Amazon Prime India in January 2022 - in conjunction with the latter’s release of its Maradona: Blessed Dreams series, covering the life of the Argentinian football legend.

Top influencers

Being a household name exposes both pizza brands to a range of influencers - from mainstream publications such as the Hindustan Times to YouTube news channels, food vloggers, and even stock market commentators. 

One of the top posts from 2021, was, in fact, an organic mention by cricket star and philanthropist Virender Sehwag, thanking Domino’s Pizza for extending its services as food delivery partner, when free home cooked meals were being distributed during the pandemic. As our analysis has demonstrated time and again, it pays for brands to be inclusive, and to step up on issues that matter the most to their consumers.

@dominos_india is in third place on the influencer charts, based on Talkwalker Quick Search results, which show the online content creators and channels that are driving the most engagement on the Domino’s (pink) and Pizza Hut (blue) brands.

Visual insights

Talkwalker’s visual insights provides a snapshot of the top engaged visual posts related to the Domino’s and Pizza Hut brands.

 

Our analysis of visual posts shores up yet another win for the Domino’s Pizza brand. Widespread coverage ensued when the brand answered hunger pangs with a ‘free pizza for life’ offer for national athlete Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, who won a silver medal in the 49-kg women’s weightlifting category in July 2021, at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

This earned the Domino’s brand tons of visibility and, as shown in our visual analysis, more organic mentions of Domino’s Pizza across food vlogs and content. 

Stay tuned into our Battle of the Brands series for a fortnightly analysis and, in case you missed it, catch up on last week’s article covering biscuit brands Britannia and Parle.