Pizza Hut have been issuing some pretty interesting tweets to engage with millennials,  including their recent use of popular memes and gifs to support their marketing strategy (but let us not forget the time they Photoshopped Andy Murray’s face on a baby). Getting involved in current topics that interest a particular target segment is a great way to raise your profile, and if you say something people find particularly interesting, you may even go viral. Pizza Hut’s Twitter marketing seems to be aimed towards younger people, which makes sense as they have the biggest presence on Twitter.

Kanye West’s fans fit primarily within the same age group (according to some albeit dated research from Elite Recordings), with over 19 million followers. It comes as no surprise that the release of his latest album, The Life of Pablo, has been a hot topic, especially as West recently announced debts of over $53 million.

Pizza Hut are obviously keeping up with the West’s, as they have tweeted suggesting that he has given up music and applied for a job with them instead.

It’s clear from the number of likes and retweets that Pizza Hut are getting a fair bit attention from it, but is it actually increasing sales? Well, yes, for one person at least:

The problem that Pizza Hut face is the lack of tangibility on the ROI for this campaign- it’s hard to quantify how many of their sales will be as a result of the campaign, and how many are because of other factors like current offers or accessibility.

Either way, the joke continued with Pizza Hut tweeting a résumé they say that Kanye created, which is in the style of his latest album cover, which was mentioned on the picture. It also features the same salmon pink background, overlapping text and unusual layout.

Using innovative ideas involving current issues is a great way to get your voice heard, but differences in opinions can cause controversy- the question is, has it damaged Pizza Hut’s reputation with its customers, in particular those who feel they were making fun of West & his financial situation? The answer appears to be mainly no, as the majority of feedback appears to be overwhelmingly positive, but as expected, there have been a few comments questioning the appropriateness of the joke.

Overall, it seems to have been received as a bit of light-hearted fun. Kanye doesn’t seem to have responded to Pizza Hut, so maybe he’s not giving up the his day job to wait tables quite yet.