Pizza Hut is hoping to tap into Amazon’s suite of mobile applications and Alexa devices with a new promotion that gives a discount to consumers who place an order through an Alexa device.

The promotion will give customers 30 percent off their order if they enable the Pizza Hut ordering skill from their mobile app and place an order through Alexa. The move is an attempt on Pizza Hut’s part to get its mobile ordering capabilities to an even broader number of channels.

“We may be a little bit biased, but National Pizza Day is certainly one of the days a year that are cause for a major celebration,” said Dave Timm, chief marketing officer at Pizza Hut. “That’s why with the help of Amazon Alexa, Pizza Hut fans can enjoy 30 percent off all of their pizza favorites and more for a whole week beginning on National Pizza Day.”

Alexa ordering
Pizza Hut is taking advantage of this new found ability by promoting the Pizza Hut ordering skill ahead of National Pizza Day.

But instead of just one day of pizza celebration, Pizza Hut is going for the whole week.

For the entire week, customers who order anything from Pizza Hut by using Amazon Alexa will get a 30 percent discount off their order.

Amazon Alexa has made waves in the mobile ordering space since its release.

While mobile devices can recognize voice and some mobile apps have made specific features available for voice searching or voice ordering – the YouTube mobile app is a good example of this – it is not until now that brands and marketers are really beginning to wake up to the possibilities provided by voice ordering thanks to Alexa.

What is more is that due to the ability to create “skills” for Alexa – bits of code that allow the device to perform certain specified functions – brands are able to customize exactly how the interaction will go that leads to an order without having to worry about Alexa misunderstanding or misinterpreting the order.

Mobile channels
That Pizza Hut is tapping into Amazon’s powerful new Alexa devices is not surprising given the immense hype around them.

Brands from all different categories and industries have been lining up to create their own Alexa skills, which can be enabled through the Alexa app on a mobile device.

For pizza vendors such as Pizza Hut, the ability to let your customers order through whatever channel they desire is powerful since it is an item that is ordered far more often than others.

Pizza Hut has used similar tactics to promote its other channels, including a 50 percent discount for customers who order through a mobile device (see story).

Similarly, the brand has been focusing on chatbots in a major way, enabling them on a number of platforms including Facebook Messenger and Twitter (see story).

As time goes on, these promotions are likely to continue as both Amazon and the brands associated with Alexa try to encourage users to adopt the technology.

“The Pizza Hut skill on Alexa is responsive, interactive and extremely fun to use,” Mr. Timm said. “What better day to try it than a day that includes pizza.”