What Pizza Taught Me About the Importance of Care Factor

There is a (seemingly) hole in the wall pizza place in Brooklyn , Di Fara, that makes the best pizza in NYC. Trust me – visit the restaurant. It earns the title.

What makes the pizzas here so good? Sure, they have top-notch ingredients and a great oven. But I think what makes their pizzas a cut above the rest is care factor.

All of Di Fara’s pizzas are made by one man, Domenico DeMarco, who has been operating Di Fara since 1964. Each time you visit the restaurant, DeMarco is on display in their open kitchen, carefully making each pie. It’s legendary – there are articles describing his incredibly detailed, careful and personalized approach to making each pizza. He methodically places all of the ingredients on the pie, ensuring an even spreading, places into the oven, checks several times to make sure that each pizza is cooked perfectly, and then finishes off with chopped basil, parmesan, and olive oil. The process is entirely transparent – DeMarco must know that part of the draw of DiFara is watching his careful preparation of each pie, so he’s sure to “perform” in front of his audience of hungry customers. By the time you get your pizza, you are primed to love it (and you do).

So why does this matter in the world of public relations? Something we talk about regularly here at Bliss is care factor – i.e. showing our clients, the media, digital influencers, our clients’ clients and our coworkers that we truly care about the work that we do. It’s embedded into our culture.

But we are at a disadvantage from DeMarco – except in rare cases, our clients don’t watch us work. They have to take us at our word that we have a strong care factor, and we have to prove it by our end product. The other tool that we have in our arsenal is regular communication, lifting the veil of our process to clients, detailing steps taken, our thinking, challenges and ideas. Unfortunately, nothing matches Demarco’s “performance.”

What are other ways to show your care factor?

To Connect with Katherine:

Phone: 212.840.1661
Email: katherine@blisspr.com
Twitter: @kilpatrickk
Linked In: Katherine Kilpatrick