But Caesar was at least Italian. “Little Caesar” is a famous movie, so it’s got built-in recognition and publicity. Similarly with Godfather’s Pizza. The Godfather was Italian, and famous, so you get built-in name recognition.
And in both cases, it’s a character associated with Italy – just like Pizza.
But Red Baron is German, and one doesn’t think of Germany when thinking about Pizza, which is, I think, why the OP was really posted.
I mean, Catherine the Great and Marco Polo and Genghis Khan were all famous people, with instant name recognition, but I don’t associate them in any way with Pizza, and wouldn’t put their name on a Pizza.
Von Richtofen looked more like a young Bob Newhart than the caricature on the box. Led Zeppelin were members of Jagdstaffel 11 as seen on their second album
Read the quote I copied from the company spokesman in my earlier post-- they officially state that the guy on the box isn’t supposed to be von Richthofen.
I think the answer to that is - marketing is full of brand associations that aren’t specifically culturally related to the product that’s being sold. As long as customers aren’t confused about what the product is, it’s all good.
Short, unique, recognizable, easy to say, built-in iconography, and a vague quasi-mythological reference that most people recognize (or did), but don’t really know much or care much about. I think the fact that he’s German is an irrelevant factoid. It’d be a great brand regardless of the food you’re selling.
What does “White Castle” have to do with burgers?
“Marco Polo’s” is a great name for a food brand, regardless of what the food is.
I’ve seen Marco Polo used as a name for a Chinese-Italian restaurant. Yes. Really. And the name is uniquely suited to it.
If someone used it for a pizza, I’d expect it to be Chinese food pizza.* It’s not “a great name for a food brand, regardless of what the food is.”
*Which is a thing. The Flying Pie pizzeria in Salt Lake City tried it for a while. After I met my wife, Pepper Mill, I was surprised to learn that she and her friends used to make it, too.
If you just google “Marco Polo Pizza,” you’ll find a number of restaurants using that name. I personally would not expect Chinese with that name. I would just think it’s a cute name. I suspect most people couldn’t even tell you what he had to do with China. Hell, what I remember of him is more than a game we played in the pool was named after him than what he actually did. I know he’s supposedly thought of bringing the concept of pasta to Italy from China, but that’s been disputed. And … that’s about it. He’s a traveler. Oh yeah, something about the Silk Road.
Shout ‘Marco’ in a crowd and someone will call back ‘Polo’. There’s a current commercial for I don’t care what that has Marco Polo in a swimming pool with kids playing Marco Polo. I’m sure there’s a fair amount of people wondering who that guy is. Sure people know the name, and little pizza joints can be named just about anything, you only have to tell one apart from the next one down the road, but if the Red Baron already known as both Snoopy’s imaginary foe and an actual historical figure works for frozen pizza then I guess Marco Polo could work for something too.
When I was a kid, there was a Beechcraft Bonanza (Model 33, IIRC) at Montgomery Field in San Diego. The underside was sky blue, and the rest was red. It sported iron crosses on the wings and sides, on white backgrounds at lease on the red parts. ISTR that I was told it belonged to the owner of Red Baron Pizza.
There are a couple of problems with this. From what I’m reading now, Red Baron Pizza came about in 1975; which is too late for my memory. (This site says ‘Schwan’s Sales Enterprises (now Schwan’s Company) — makers of Red Baron pizza — didn’t enter the frozen pizza market until 1970…’, which does fit the timeframe.) The other problem is that Schwan’s Company is based in Minnesota, which is a long way from San Diego.
Nevertheless, there was a ‘Red Baron’ Beechcraft based at MYF in the late-'60s/early-'70s.
Probably the majority of “Mongolian grill” restaurants (which serve a style of food no one in Mongolia has ever heard of, but anyway) are named after Genghis Khan, despite his prolific record of murder and rape.
With very few exceptions, we treat anything from before living memory as basically indistinguishable from fiction. There are still people you can meet who were victimized by Hitler so that’s out, but with the possible exception of something like “Slavery Pizza” there’s nothing from before 1920 or so that the average person has enough historical knowledge to recognize or enough emotional baggage to get offended over. “Red Baron” is as good a name for a pizza as any.
