Did you know 74% of Americans order a takeout pizza or a delivery pizza at least once a month? The was not news to the folks at DiGiorno,who used it to spur research in the expanding area of facial analytics.
You might recall we told you the brand used facial recognition technology to measure happiness of participants at pizza parties it staged in the NY area (PRN, May 8, 2017). The technology showed people were happiest when they smelled pizza baking.
As it promised, DiGiorno has continued its work in this promising area. It also added a wrinkle, augmenting its work with a social media listening component.
As you can see at the bottom of the infographic PR News designer Yelena Shamis cooked up with data from DiGiorno’s latest research, 80% of social posts about delivery and carryout pizza during 2017 “were not positive.”
DiGiorno marketing manager Steven Frye tells us its newest data collection consisted of video footage from six gatherings of friends and families at a suburban Chicago home in December 2017. “The room was set up with more than 20 high-resolution hidden cameras” that captured footage of guests while DiGiorno pizza baked in the oven or delivery pizza was ordered from national chains, Frye says.
Google’s Vision API software analyzed footage “to identify patterns in emotion, such as smiles and frown lines, determining how much happiness was generated.” As you can see in the infographic, partygoers experienced 27% more joy when pizza was baking in the oven. At parties where pizza was ordered, joy dropped 20%.
The social data about the delivery pizza experience might explain the reduction in joy the footage shows.
DiGiorno’s Frye provided few facial cues when responding to our question about how the brand plans to use this new information in its marketing effort. DiGiorno is “confident” that “we have a superior pizza because it is fresh-baked from the oven. We’ll continue to express this in different and creative ways.” The PR News staff stands ready and able to participate in future DiGiorno research efforts.
