From hipster bands to creative sandwich making, our favorite wing men (and women) showed off their digital savvy and passion for sauce at SXSW, along with the launch of the #saucehappens training video contest. You heard it here first, people!
Pandora Discovery Den at SXSW
Pizza Hut showed off its hipster side in Austin, Texas for four key days during Music Week at SXSW (South by Southwest), a set of music, film, and digital festivals that took place over two weeks. While Baron Concors spoke to the masses on a panel discussion about digital influencers (see our coverage here), the WingStreet team brought the mobile food truck to the Pandora Discovery Den to dish up some flavorful wings.
The Pandora Discovery Den was on 6th Street, the main thoroughfare of SXSW, complete with a WingStreet lounge area where visitors could hang out, eat wings, and watch and listen to a simulcast of the stage on a big screen HD LED TV without missing a beat. The WingStreet truck served up an estimated 13,000 wings, letting concert goers sample honey barbecue, buffalo medium, and honey sriracha—as well as preview a secret new flavor—for free. Once the Twitter account @Southbyfreenoms (which has over 25,000 followers searching for free snacks) found out about the event, the truck was swamped with a line of fans reaching around the block. People were blown away and very excited about how good the wings are!
Social Media Launch
Most importantly, SXSW coincided with the launch of new WingStreet social media pages! Check out the Facebook and Twitter pages, which opened for business a day before the festival started. At the festival, WingStreet held a competition to promote our Twitter page and hashtag (#PracticeSafeSauce). Partakers who shared a photo, followed our Twitter handle and used the hashtag received a coupon for a free order of eight count wings with any medium or large pizza purchase within the Austin area. Participants were also entered to win one of four $200 gift cards, leading to more than 350 fans on Twitter and 113 new likes on Facebook.
#SauceHappens Competition
WingStreet is searching for the next big star! The Training and Development team is working on a new video to turn wing-saucing novices into experts. The #SauceHappens contest asks participants to submit a 2-minute video of themselves making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; until April 6, US Pizza Hut team members can vote on their top 2 favorite videos—those winners will get to visit the Pizza Hut Headquarters in Plano and shoot the next WingStreet training video! [Editor’s note: the #saucehappens competition closed for entries on April 6. Thank you so much to those who submitted an entry, and keep an eye out for our final winners on some WingStreet training videos in the future!]
This is just the start of some exciting stuff going on with the WingStreet crew this year. Keep an eye out for some top secret news this spring, as well as an interview with our WingStreet truck captains!!