“How’ve the cookies been going?” Dedrick asked, elbow-deep in shredded mozzarella as we prepped toppings for the lunch rush.
“I’ve been eating them,” I said with a shrug, “though not many customers have.”
“Just doing the chocolate chip?”
“Yeah. The vendor has six types of dough, but if they’re not going to be big sellers, I’d rather keep to the most popular.” I pushed a batch of sliced peppers into a topping container.
“Did you post online about them?”
“Yeah, but got next to no traction.” I blew a loose strand of hair off my forehead. “I guess adding cookies to the menu isn’t exciting enough for anyone to share.”
“You’re hardly going to get The Campus Connection to cover that one.” Dedrick turned my way. “So are you taking them off the menu?”
“Nope, I’m keeping them. Not all experiments will be home runs, but I figure this one is at least a single. The way I see it, they come from an existing supplier, and the dough is cheap, so there’s no headache or expense in keeping them. I’m not making big money off them, but if they bring in a few extra bucks a day, I’m not going to say no.”
“The question is, bossman,” Dedrick said as he grabbed an onion, “how do you find that home run?”
I shrugged again. “I guess we just keep experimenting.”
“So what are you going to try next?”
“Not sure.” I looked around the shop. “Maybe not all experiments need to be food-related.”
“I got you. They just need to cause buzz and get people walking in the door. Get them talking about you again.”
I licked my lips, half-distracted by the thought forming in my head. “Yeah…”
“You’ve got that look in your eye.” Dedrick pointed his knife at me, grinning. “What are you thinkin’ now?”
“The Pizza Experiment?” Professor Hunt repeated after I shared my idea with the class.
“That’s right. What do you think of it?” I asked, trying to read her face.
“I think it’s a horrible name for a restaurant,” Meg cut in. “No one goes to a restaurant hoping to be a guinea pig.”
Professor Hunt ignored Meg. “Why do you want a new name, Ty?”
“This might sound weird,” I said, hands in my hoodie pocket, “but I was thinking last night about how I don’t really know what I’m doing. Whatever Mr. Bartley did clearly failed, so even though I inherited a blueprint, I don’t want to follow it. And I keep hearing that getting ahead in business involves experimentation. I think the name will help me embrace that.”
“You don’t need experimentation as much as you need to follow successful models,” Meg said.
This time I met her head-on. “I’m still going to sell proven staples, but I want the freedom to experiment as well. Like when I started selling slices, even though I wasn’t sure we’d make more money than sticking to pies. Our average order came down, but our total revenue went up, because more people come in the door who only want a slice or two.”
“Can’t you experiment without changing the name?” Andrew asked.
“I guess. But the name will be a constant reminder to avoid falling into boring patterns.” I stretched my hands up high as though holding a banner. “To me, it says innovation. It says creativity.”
“It says amateur,” Meg said.
“I hear you want a name that will keep you feeling innovative and creative,” Professor Hunt said. “But Meg’s also got a point. Think of it from the customer’s perspective. No one wants to eat at a restaurant where they’re afraid of what they’ll get.”
“Got it. Dumb idea.” It was one thing to shoot down Meg the pessimist, but if Artemis was on her side, that was a different story.
“I dunno,” Owen said, “I’d be game to try just about anything.”
“It doesn’t matter what you’d try,” Meg said. “Remember Ty’s avatar is a woman, not a frat boy.”
“I like the idea of something cutting edge and innovative,” Andrew jumped in before Owen could respond. “You just need language that sounds more compelling. How about The Pizza Lab?”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” I asked.
Andrew shook his head. “A lab’s where experiments happen, but it’s also a serious environment where little is left to chance.”
“As opposed to some freshman experimenting with drugs?” Owen snorted a laugh.
“Exactly. Plus, the university has plenty of labs. My friend’s a chem major and is in lab all the time. So it’s a wink that your pizzeria’s a student hangout.”
I wasn’t sure why I valued Meg’s opinion so much, but I found myself wanting her approval. “Meg?”
“I like it.” She nodded. “It’s still got that spirit of creativity and experimentation, but without the fear of a nauseating culinary experience.”
“I dig it too,” Owen said.
“Professor?”
“Honestly, I think too many companies rebrand. It’s usually more expensive than they think and causes customer confusion. But there are positives. It can make you newsworthy again. You can pitch the school paper on another article, and I bet they’d bite. It can create buzz.”
“I gather there are pluses and minuses,” I said, “but do you think I should do it?”
“Sure, why not,” Hunt said, “if for no other reason than you find it exciting. You’re at an age and stage in life where you lose little if you fail. So you might as well give yourself lots of room to take risks. It’s your business—have fun with it.”
“And you’ve gotta mark your turf, too,” Owen said. “The Leaning Tower was Bartley’s place. You need to put your stamp on it.”
“OK. The Pizza Lab it is,” I said, though in my head, I knew I’d continue thinking of it as The Pizza Experiment. I wasn’t sure if rebranding was smart business, but it definitely got my creative juices flowing.
I didn’t know squat about making a logo. Fortunately, Dedrick, the marketing major, had my back.
“My cousin always runs contests,” he said, tying on his apron with practiced speed.
“Your cousin the crowdsourcing guy?”
“That’s the one. We can call him and ask about it if you like.” Dedrick pulled out his phone and tapped the speaker button.
“Dede!” A deep Southern drawl boomed out of the phone. “What’s going on?”
“Hey Javon, I’m here with my boss,” Dedrick said, shooting me a wink.
“At the pizza place?”
“You got it.” Dedrick leaned against the counter. “I’ve got him on speakerphone. He’s rebranding. Wants a new logo. I told him about your contests.”
“Bossman,” Javon called out, “do you know what you want the new logo to be?”
“Not really.”
“Contests are great,” Javon said. “Especially in your case, since you haven’t figured out exactly what you want. Why put one mind on a problem when you can get 50 for the same price?”
“Can you text me the link to the site you use?” Dedrick asked, already opening his browser.
“You got it, Dede.”
Dedrick gave me a thumbs up as the ping of an incoming text hit his phone.
But I was still hesitant. “Are the designers any good?” I asked.
“Honestly, some are great. Others suck.”
“What type of instructions do I give?”
“The more, the better,” Javon said. “You got any clues about the direction you want to go?”
I glanced at Dedrick, who gave a tiny shake of his head. “I’ve got some general ideas. I’m calling the place The Pizza Lab, so I want something science-related.”
“Alright,” Javon said. “You know what colors you want?”
“Yeah, going with the school colors.”
“Honestly, that’s plenty to create a basic design brief. Once ideas start rolling in, you’ll get a better sense of what you’re after. Just update the brief and add more details.”
Just then, Carrie rushed in with two huge bags of groceries. Dedrick passed me the phone, took the bags from her, and quietly filled her in on the conversation.
“You sure I won’t get total crap?” I asked Javon.
“Ohhhhhh, you’ll get plenty of that,” Javon said with a laugh. “But if you offer a big enough award—and especially if you invite some of the better designers to join—you’ll get some great submissions too.”
“So I just pick the one I like the best?” I asked.
“You can, but if you give great feedback early in the process, you’ll get more revisions and better results.”
Carrie, already unpacking produce, glanced over. “Sounds like exploitation,” she said. She dropped peppers on the cutting board, grabbed a knife, and pointed at both of us. “You two—on onions.”
“Who’s that?” Javon asked.
“I’m Carrie, the manager.”
“Well, Carrie, the manager,” Javon said, “how do you figure it’s exploitation?”
Dedrick bit his lip to stifle a laugh. Carrie chopped faster. “All these people are working, and most aren’t getting paid.”
“You’re not forcing anyone to do anything, my friend,” Javon replied smoothly. “Everyone who competes knows the score.”
“But they’re only in it because they think they can win.”
“Not necessarily,” Javon said, his voice still cool. “I encouraged my ex-girlfriend to compete even though I thought her designs sucked at the time.”
Carrie paused mid-chop. “Why?”
“Because she was getting her graphic design degree. She had to submit all these designs for class. I said, ‘Why are you making up fake projects so you can create logos no one but you and your professor will ever see? Better to join a contest for a real project, where real people will give you real feedback, and who knows, you might even win a few bucks.’”
He chuckled. “By the end of the year, her designs didn’t suck as bad. She actually won two awards. More importantly, she built a portfolio and got experience working on actual projects.”
“So it’s mostly students?” I asked.
“No, many of them are pros who’d rather show what they can do through their designs than try to win clients based on a pitch. Some are in poorer countries and have little access to first-world clients, but know that if they win even one contest a month, they can make a strong living. Everyone’s got their reasons for joining. They show up and compete because it’s better for them than not showing up.”
My eyes were teary from the onions, but I could still see Carrie’s hesitation. I wanted to make sure she was on board, so I asked. “Why do you recommend we run a contest rather than hire a good designer?”
“In my experience, a guy like you, who doesn’t know exactly what he wants and doesn’t have a gigantic budget, will probably get a better product at a better price by letting many creative minds weigh in than by settling on only one.”
He paused. “There’s just one thing you’ve got to do.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Take good care of my cousin. You want to avoid exploitation, make sure he sees some benefit from all these ideas he’s bringing you.”
Dedrick laughed and patted my back.
I winked at him. “You got it.”
“Shall we look at what the world’s creative geniuses have come up with?” Dedrick asked during the afternoon lull. We were a couple days into our contest. I’d made him manager of the account, which was a good thing, because I barely had a moment for schoolwork, much less to review dozens of design entries.
“What have we got?” I asked, my hands covered in flour.
“Early results show two general themes,” Dedrick said, flipping open his laptop on the counter. “One, lab equipment. There’s a microscope with a pizza on it and three different pizza-shaped beakers.”
“What’s the other theme?” I asked, reaching for the ladle of sauce.
“Mad scientists.” He rotated the screen toward me. “Check it out.”
“Interesting,” I said, spreading sauce evenly across the base. “Is that all?”
“For the designs, yes. But we’ve also received quite a few messages.”
“Saying what?”
Dedrick leaned into the computer. “A few are from designers we’ve invited saying they’ll be submitting a design in the next few days. Oooh, but we’ve got a half dozen messages from designers who’ll only join if we make the contest blind.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means all submissions are private. Only we can see them. As one of the emails points out, no one wants to spend time coming up with a concept for your restaurant, only to have others rip off the idea and win the contest with it.”
“Does it cost any more to go blind?” I asked, wiping flour off my fingers with a rag.
“Nope.”
I paused, cheese in hand. “Any reason not to do it?”
“If it’s not blind, we’ll get designers inspiring each other, taking one another’s ideas and making them better.”
“Hmm.” I dropped a handful of mozzarella onto the pizza. “But it sounds like we’ll lose some of the best designers that way.”
“True. So what do you wanna do?”
I chewed on an olive while I thought about what I’d invested in my own business. “If I came up with a unique idea, I wouldn’t want anyone stealing it, either. Let’s go blind. And after we do, we should write back to the designers who asked for it and let them know.”
“I’m on it,” Dedrick said, fingers already flying over the keyboard.
While Dedrick typed, I sprinkled some oregano on the pie and slid it into the oven.
The typing stopped. “What about the mad scientist versus science equipment divide?” Dedrick asked.
“We don’t have to resolve it, right?”
“Nope. We can leave things vague and let the designers make the calls for themselves. But if we already know what we don’t like, why waste their time perfecting designs we have no intention of using?”
“I see your point.” I stepped over and peered at the submissions on his screen. “I’m digging the mad scientist. It’s a lot more fun than a pizza-shaped beaker.”
“Adding it to the brief,” he said, typing as he talked.
“Thanks.” I took a swig from my water bottle. “Anything else we need to do?”
“Yep,” Dedrick said, swiveling the laptop back to me. “We’ve gotta give feedback on the designs we’ve gotten.”
“So the designers can make new iterations?”
“That’s one reason. The other is that designers sitting on the fence can see you’re actively engaged. Javon says that makes them more likely to join.”
I bent in toward the screen. “The only one I really like is the first mad scientist.”
“Alright. I’ll give that guy three stars. The rest I’ll eliminate, saying they’re not the direction we want to go.”
“Why are you only giving it three stars?”
Dedrick smacked his chest. “Another gem I picked up from Javon. Five stars means you’re done, that you’ve got the perfect design. Once you hit that point, who’d want to waste their time designing anything new? Right now, we just want to signal we’ve got something in the right direction, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.”
“Got it.”
Three days later, Dedrick burst through the door just before the lunch rush, his backpack slung over one shoulder.
“You’re not on shift today, are you?” I asked, glancing up from the prep table.
His face was practically glowing. “You haven’t seen it then, have you?”
“What?” I asked, wiping sauce off my hands.
He dropped his bag on the counter and yanked out his laptop. “Your new logo.”
“There’s still six hours left until the end of the contest.”
“Yeah, but the winner came in this morning. I knew the minute I saw it.”
“Let me see.”
Dedrick spun the laptop towards me. “Check that out, Dr. Frankenstein bringing a pizza to life. Is that perfect or what?”
It was very cool. Bold lines, electric colors, a twisted cartoonish energy. But did it scream pizzeria? “Carrie,” I called over my shoulder, “come take a look at this.”
One glance and she snapped her fingers. “Love it. Dedrick’s right. That’s the winner.”
“We can end the contest early, right?” I asked. “Should we just select it now?”
“No way.” Dedrick drew a firm line in the air. “We’ve got to play this right.”
“Why?” Carrie asked. “We’re not in a negotiation, right? Didn’t you make it a $500 contest? What’s to play other than handing over the money and getting the design?”
Dedrick shook his head with a knowing grin. “Nothing with the designer. Everything with our customers.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, you want this rebranding to be epic.” He leaned over his computer. “You want everyone on campus talking about you again, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Then don’t select a winner. Let the contest end on its own. Then we’ll select the top three finalists and blast them on social media. Tell students we need their help selecting a winner and let them vote.”
Carrie looked confused. “Unless something even more incredible comes in, Frankenstein will win in a landslide.”
“Exactly. We’ve already made our choice, but rather than telling everyone, we can let them believe they’re part of the process.”
“I’ve got to give it to you, Dede,” Carrie said, “that’s pretty brilliant.”
He gave her a mock bow. “It’s another bit of brilliance I’ve inherited from Javon. That guy could sell popsicles in the dead of winter.”
He closed the laptop with a soft click. “So, what do you think, boss?”
I grinned. “I defer to the wisdom of my Chief Marketing Officer. Let’s make it happen.”
“Nice uptick in customers, I see,” Dedrick said as he came in for the night shift.
“Happens every time we get buzz,” I said. “This one’s thanks to you and the logo contest. We had over 500 votes.”
“You’re telling me?” He stepped behind the counter. “We had 562, to be exact. 436 of them for Dr. Frankenstein.” He tied his apron around his waist in one smooth motion. “Did you order the new sign?”
“Yup. It normally takes three weeks to make, but for an extra $300, I ordered a rush job. It’ll take five days. They can install it next Monday.”
Dedrick smacked my shoulder with the back of his hand. “Is cash so flush that you can afford to pay for a rush job?”
“You have it backwards, my friend.” I shook my head slow and low. “Cash is anything but flush. That’s why I want the rush job.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not following.”
I pulled a steaming hot pie out of the oven and set it on the counter. “It’s simple. I want more money coming in, which means I need more customers. So far, the best way I’ve found to fill seats is to be newsworthy.”
“And you think a new sign will do that?”
“The sign alone, no.” It was my turn to be the smartypants. “But it’s the final piece I’m waiting for.”
“For what?”
“To launch a Grand Re-Opening.”
