Pizza X celebrates name change

A Bloomington pizza company is dropping its express title, but company leaders said service won’t change.

Pizza Express officially becomes Pizza X today and is celebrating by giving out freebies – from breadsticks to tuition.

Students loyal to the Pizza Express name will now find themselves drinking from Pizza X cups and enjoying the Big X deal. The company kicks off its annual free breadsticks day from 4 to 8 p.m. today at its four Bloomington locations.

The company is using the name change as part of its branding transition strategy, Pizza X CEO and co-founder Jeff Measer said.

“We’re not trying to overnight change the name of the company,” he said.

Pizza Express, in existence since 1982, will not change the whole company.

“We’ll have some new staff shirts,” Mease said. “The van actually is not going to change for awhile, and the Express van character is actually not ever going to change.

The Express name character has such a cool thing that we’ve built around that we didn’t want to change that.”

To help kick off the celebrations, the Great Pizza X Treasure Hunt, a scratch-off game, will take place during the next three weeks. Pizza X bargains will include 50 iPod shuffles, five laptops, free pizzas and breadsticks and a semester of free in-state tuition.

“What it brings to them is that we’re going to bring to them over $90,000 in the next week to sort of help them help us celebrate the name change in the next few weeks,”
Mease said.

Although the face of Pizza Express will change, prices will remain the same. The breadsticks and treasure hunt promotion are to help Pizza X and its customers have a smoother transition to its new name.

“I don’t think it will hurt them that much, not here in a college town,” freshman Zane Wininger said. “Pizza’s just the thing to have.”

The company realized the importance of a name they could protect after a dispute with the Big Ten conference about the Big X deal that used to be known as the Big Ten Bargain.

Mease wants Pizza X customers to know that the three crusts, six sauces and 25-plus toppings will all remain when the six letters are dropped from the name.

“It’s a lot of money to give away to begin with,” junior Amanda Nielsen said. “I don’t know if people will just want to get free stuff or if they’re actually going to buy Pizza Express after that.”