Sign Language: How a Local Bakery Found Word-of-Mouth Success
At the top of a busy, hilly artery in Collegeville, PA, there is an illuminated, double-sided sign advertising a family-owned Italian bakery and pizzeria. At first glance, you’d think there’s nothing extraordinary about this sign — but you’d be wrong.
In the Greater Philadelphia Area, you can’t go more than a few days without seeing people — many of whom are often quite influential — sharing Collegeville Italian Bakery’s sign.
Philadelphia sports legends like Joel Embiid & Pro Football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins have shared the messages displayed on the sign on a handful of occasions, earning plenty of attention and notoriety for the family-run bakery/pizzeria/Nutella bar. (That’s right — a Nutella bar.)
On paper, it looks like any other pizza shop you’ve seen with a sign off the side of a highway, But it’s not. The sign at Collegeville Italian Bakery and Pizzeria is one of the best talk triggers around.
The Deliciousness of Different
Being different is a curious thing in business. Everyone wants to be different, but most don’t have the stomach for it. What makes Collegeville Italian Bakery a business everyone can learn from isn’t simply that they want to be different, it’s that they are different. Their differences come naturally and give them a leg up — and they take advantage of every edge they have.
Founded by Italian immigrants in 1994, today Patrizia Carcarey carries on the legacy her parents passed on to and her husband, Steve. Patrizia oversees everything consumer-facing while Steve handles all of the marketing and “business” activities alongside their daughter, Skye. While the original bakery was small, the Carcarey’s had big ideas. They dreamed of having an old-world pizzeria and a Nutella bar/ice cream bar in addition to the bakery — a one-stop word-of-mouth shop.
Building Word-of-Mouth Magic
Every business has great ideas. Where these ideas get lost is in execution. Fortunately, Collegeville Italian Bakery had both fantastic ideas and excellent execution.
Still, their tasty triumvirate was a big gamble, especially rolling out a pizzeria in the Pizza-Belt, where pizza is a commodity. What makes the feat even more impressive is that the Carcarey’s only knew one thing about pizza before deciding to add a pizzeria: eating it.
To make the most of their investment, Steve traveled to California and learned how to make pizza from Tony Gemignani, a 13-time World Pizza Cup Champion. After learning from the best of the best, Collegeville Bakery now makes styles of pizza from all over the world, with Detroit-style being the current favorite. “Since COVID hit, it’s unbelievable how many Detroits we’re selling nowadays,” Steve said. “It’s crazy.”
The Nutella bar (which is just an amazing idea, by the way) is rooted in Patrizia’s childhood. While many of us grew up with peanut butter and jelly, her parents sent her to school with Nutella sandwiches. Nutella wasn’t as popular or as prominent as it is today, and kids made fun of her lunch. “Here comes the girl with chocolate sandwiches,” Steve said. Fortunately, Patrizia’s love of Nutella paid off and became a major differentiator and word-of-mouth driver for the business.
Being only a stone’s throw from the town’s namesake, Ursinus College, Collegeville Bakery found Nutella to be a major hit with students. “It’s unbelievable with college students,” Steve said. “From milkshakes to crepes — whatever, it really works. Again, something different. That was our thinking behind the Nutella Bar.”
A Remarkable Sign
The “sign” of a good Talk Trigger, if you’ll pardon my blatant pun, as authors Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin introduced in Talk Triggers, is one that follows the 4 Rs: Remarkable, Repeatable, Reasonable, & Relevant.
Having a sign is certainly reasonable for any business. When done correctly, it’s also relevant and repeatable, too. But Collegeville Italian Bakery’s use of their sign hits on the fourth R — remarkable — making it a true success.
The sign wasn’t always as effective as it is today. It used to simply read, “Collegeville Bakery”, until one day Steve decided there was another way to utilize it — proactive promoting, celebrating, and building up others in the community.
Positive Signs
“We live in a negative world,” Steve said. “You open up your paper now, you don’t see anything positive.” With their sign, CIB does everything it can to shine a light on the good in the world, especially when it comes to celebrating kids in the community. “We try to acknowledge a kid who maybe threw a no-hitter, a Boy Scout who got his next patch, or a young lady who’s scored her thousandth point. To us, these are all outstanding accomplishments that deserve to be recognized.”
The sign really took off when the bakery showed their support for Philadelphia 76er Joel Embiid’s NBA All-Star game bid. But Embiid wasn’t just aiming for a shot at the ASG; he was also hoping for a date with Rihanna. So Steve did his best to play wingman.
“We put, ‘Rihanna, Joel Embiid has love on the brain, NBA vote,’” and Embiid himself retweeted it.”
With the big man’s blessing, the tweet was shared at a rate CIB had never experienced. “From that point on,” Steve said, “it just took off.”
Much like many of the other celebrities and Philadelphia personalities who’ve been through the bakery (the walls are packed with signed photos of local personalities and international icons who’ve come through to say hello and enjoy their fare) the Carcarey’s still have a relationship with Embiid and his family. They even have a special Joel Embiid milkshake on the menu — yes, it’s a Nutella shake.
It’s all part of the ultimate philosophy: whatever happens in this community, “we want to make people feel good. That’s what the sign is for.“
How to Keep Them Coming Back
But what kind of value does this bring to the business? From a business perspective, the sign is the best advertising Steve’s ever “paid” for, which is pretty ironic considering they don’t spend a dime on any marketing. “The only marketing we do,” Steve said, “is maybe a little league team or something like that.” While a local little league team is certainly a perfect community fit, that’s also a nod back to Steve’s former life as a college baseball coach.
While he may not be spending money on coupons and flyers, their investments in the sign have created a talk trigger so powerful that people — whether they’ve been honored by the sign or not — come back time and time again, to eat, say hello, or just to say thank you. Recently, the family received a personal thanks from a photojournalist they’d honored with the sign.
“One day, I just turned around, and there he was in the bakery,” Steve said. The honoree had driven more than an hour to thank the family in person.
“And I’m like, a sign. You came all the way out here just to thank us personally. It felt good. It really did, just for him to come out here to thank us personally. It meant a lot. It really did.”
Hot, Crispy Talk Triggers
For a sign with high visibility, Collegeville Bakery hardly ever uses it to promote itself. Instead, it’s become the de facto bulletin board for good news. All of the attention the sign garners certainly could be a major revenue generator for the Bakery. But remarkably, it’s all free. “Tell me what you want and when you want it, it’s done,” Steve said.
“It’s really a positive reinforcement for our community.” As Mark W. Schaefer wrote in Marketing Rebellion, to succeed today, businesses must be of the community, not simply in it. Collegeville Italian Bakery certainly has done that.
From a marketing perspective, I’m tempted to say that CIB has multiple talk triggers: its sign, its mouthwatering Nutella bar, and its positivity.
When Steve was asked years ago by his sign vendor if he was sure he really wanted this sign, he didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, I want this sign,” he said. He was curious, however about why he was asked if definitely wanted it. The answer was because many businesses are just too lazy to change their signs every now and then; to keep up with them. Steve was floored. “Changing the sign takes five, 10 minutes if that.”
Find Your Differentiators
Creating your own version of Collegeville Italian Bakery’s sign starts with identifying your business’s strengths. Ideally, these are things you not only have expertise in but also hold a distinctive, perhaps even singular, edge.
The other lesson the Carcarey’s teach us is how building up others ultimately leads to others doing the same for us. Advocates are powerful influences, regardless of whether they’re your neighbors or the region’s favorite news anchor. The extra effort and attention have paid off for Collegeville Italian Bakery in a major way.
Overall, the word-of-mouth buzz they’ve generated has resulted in tremendous success in a saturated market. Remarkable what a little positivity and a little Nutella can do for you.
