Pizza Pizza

Pizza Pizza was founded in Toronto in 1967 by Michael Overs, opening its first location as a small independent pizzeria before growing steadily into a franchise chain through the 1970s and 1980s. The chain built its identity around fast, phone-order delivery and takeout at a time when that model was still relatively novel in the Canadian pizza market, expanding aggressively across Ontario and eventually into other provinces.

The phone number as a brand

Pizza Pizza's advertising leaned heavily on a simple, rhythmic phone number jingle, "9-6-7-11-11," repeated in radio and television commercials for decades until it became one of the most widely recognized pieces of consumer advertising in Canadian history, a number many Torontonians who grew up in the chain's core markets can still recite without effort even if they haven't ordered from the chain in years. That branding consistency helped Pizza Pizza become one of Canada's largest pizza chains, still headquartered in Toronto today.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Pizza Pizza
• Wikipedia — Pizza Pizza

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