JG Pasterjak
Tech Editor & Production Manager
3/14/25 11:41 a.m.
Today I learned that the same team that named the Pontiac Fiero also named the dearly departed Pizza Hut Priazzo.
I've always been a little fascinated with product naming. It's weird confluence of art, linguistics, lyricism and cynical capitalist manipulation. A good name is frequently the difference between success and failure for an otherwise unremarkable product.
Here's a cool story from all the way back in 1987 about the naming of the Priazzo, which reveals that the same agency was also the crew who gave us the Fiero. Two hits as far as I'm concerned. Way better than the Buick LeGroin or the Pontiac Cyst.
Featherlite. (That was just for JG’s benefit, and I’ll let him share the story.)
If he's the guy that named all of my medications that I can't even pronounce let alone remember the names of that the doctor's office wants me to verify every time I visit, I want him to suffer from some electrical current.
Trent
UltimaDork
3/14/25 12:27 p.m.
Nuprin analgesic, Dial-a-Lash mascara, L.A. beer, Magnum malt liquor, Affinity shampoo, Chips Deluxe cookies, Clout paper towels, Tenere motorcycles, Visuelle cosmetics, Pizza Hut Priazzo
Gee, think of the lasting impact of all these names someone paid, likely way too much money to specialists to concoct. This is genuinely world changing stuff people.
I realize folks are looking for the next "Crescent wrench" , "Velcro", "Ziploc" or whatever the "name defines the genre type thing", but it sure looks like this company had more misses than hits.
In reply to Trent :
Are you trying to imply that I can't overindulge in Magnum Malt Liquor and neither can I try to mitigate the resulting headache with Nuprin?
I see that Magnum is still available to discriminating drinkers, but that Nuprin got nuped in 2002.
My first software job out of school was at a "digital agency."
It's one of those horrifying facts of modern life that I worked with a bunch of bright, clever, creative people doing design, animation, etc and the only place they could actually get paid was in marketing, and a lot of it was painful.
Marketing is effective, and in the best case it helps spread good ideas, but that's not the bulk of it. It's both true and infuriating that the "great" marketeers have done as much to shape the world we live in as the civil engineers, social workers, engineers, and garbage collectors, and probably more.
Truly an area where being genuinely good at it can be both appreciated and reviled.
Priazzo can't be any worse than P'Zone. It's a Calzone, it's already pizza-adjacent.
Go home Pizza Hut, you're drunk.
Even with a snazzy computer generated name it didn't have a very long life span.
Pizza Hut's Priazzo was a discontinued deep-dish pizza, a "bread bowl" filled with tomato sauce, cheese, and meat, that was introduced in 1985 and had varieties like Roma, Florentine, Milano, and Napoli, but was removed from the menu sometime between 1991 and 1993.
Then again, Fieros (and probably most of the other products mentioned in the story) didn't last very long either.
In reply to stuart in mn :
Both cooked by fire too.
Finally we get some priazzo content around here.
