Mike Foster’s comments on Pizza Hut’s new logo, alongside Brian Collins and others, were featured in Ad Age. It’s a great piece with lots of interesting takes and is worth a read.
Mike’s Full response to the questions is here:
Pizza Hut’s New Logo Solves the One Problem It Doesn’t Have
A logo isn’t a brand. Pizza Hut has fiddled with its logo when it needed to fix the brand.
Pizza Hut unveiled a refreshed mark in the UK. It’s nostalgic, instantly familiar—and that’s the problem: it’s only a logo. Meanwhile, sales fall and leadership openly discusses “gaps in value perception.” That’s not a logo problem, it’s a brand problem.
After seeing this logo, I still don’t know: Who is Pizza Hut for? What does it stand for? Why should I choose it over Domino’s tech-forward convenience or Papa John’s quality promise?
The red roof once meant something concrete: a physical destination for family gatherings. Now it’s a nostalgic symbol with the iconic buildings abandoned to a new delivery-first world. It is certainly not beautifully crafted, but at least the new design leverages distinctive assets competently, attempting to marry the personality traits of the old 1970 logotype with the energy of the 2010 logo.
The big question is why. Why do this? Why not just use the same logo as the US for global harmonisation?
Consider what Domino’s did. They didn’t just change their logo—they transformed everything. They admitted their pizza sucked, rebuilt their recipe, revolutionised their technology, and became synonymous with delivery innovation. Their visual identity signalled a deeper transformation.
Pizza Hut’s new logo signals nothing. No new philosophy, no digital revolution, no clear audience.
This feels like hope masquerading as strategy. Maybe they’re hoping for Cracker Barrel-style backlash to remind everyone they exist? But that requires intentionality, like when they put a pizza in space. This company makes incremental decisions because it lacks a strong brand that stands for something. Brands know what they are and who they’re for.
Update:
A week after these comments were published, the BBC reported Pizza Hut to close 68 UK restaurants: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07mk59pzkpo
