Spreading his wings, Cerza touts Pizza Hut
The seventh National Buffalo Wing Festival may be history, but that’s not stopping the Wing King from spreading the story of our Buffalo- hatched food item.
Drew Cerza, founder of the chicken wing festival that put the city on the culinary map, began hawking WingStreet Wings, a new menu feature at Pizza Hut restaurants, in advertisements that aired during college and professional football telecasts over the weekend.
The chain added wings deep-fried the Buffalo way after successful test marketing in several cities.
Pizza Hut is promoting the WingStreet brand as the “Official Wing of Football,” served up “Buffalo style” as opposed to the restaurant chain’s baked wings. Its ads note WingStreet is a past winner of the best traditional hot wing sauce competition at the national wing festival, held each Labor Day weekend at Coca-Cola Field in downtown Buffalo.
Cerza began a national media tour on behalf of Pizza Hut last
week in Los Angeles. He did cooking segments on several television shows, including “E” Network’s “That Morning Show,” TBS’ “Dinner and a Movie” and KTLA-TV’s morning show.
Working with the 10,000- store franchise “is another great way for me to promote my beloved hometown,” he said.
Cerza, a Clarence food promoter who started the Buffalo festival in 2002 and who recently became acting chief of the Buffalo Niagara Convention and Visitors Bureau, is already a veteran TV pitchman. He has talked up and cooked up chicken wings on NBC’s “Today” show as well as on “Fox & Friends,” “The View,” “Emeril Live,” “Throwdown with Bobby Flay,” “Live with Regis & Kelly” and the Food Network’s “Unwrapped” and “All American Festivals.”
Cerza will also star in several radio spots in connection with the WingStreet national ad campaign.
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