Bob Kraut, vice president of marketing communications, took the stage yesterday at Forrester’s Consumer Forum in Chicago with his iPhone in hand. After introducing Pizza Hut’s native iPhone application, he did what most attendees were hoping he would do. “I’m going to order a pizza to the conference,” Kraut said.

Kraut, whose background is in advertising and emerging media, spoke about Pizza Hut’s strategies in marketing to its customers — and its goals in connecting to customers in a fragile economy. There’s a new mindset out there that’s going to stick around, Kraut said. Not only are consumers more strategic in searching for deals and the best value for their dollar, customer confidence is low. A company such as Pizza Hut is especially linked to consumer confidence, he said. “Whatever we can do to lessen anxiety, give more choices, and give more value, Pizza Hut is prepared to do,” he told attendees.

Kraut then shared Pizza Hut’s 4 Key Strategies in marketing to its customers:

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The New York Times had the scoop on a recent post for an internship with Pizza Hut.

COMPANY Pizza Hut Inc.

JOB TITLE Summer Twintern

JOB TITLE, TRANSLATED A summer intern who uses Twitter.

JOB CATEGORY Hot pizza/social media

SALARY Competitive (with other Twitterers)

JOB PURPOSE To attend advertising shoots, product meetings and other corporate events

As stated in a Pizza Hut news release: “The Twintern will do more than just keep followers posted on great deals and menu items from Pizza Hut. They’ll also keep a keen eye on pop culture news, off-the-wall stories or anything else quirky and fun that he or she thinks would be of interest to loyal Pizza Hut fans.”

Could Pizza Hut be scrambling for positive press in light of Domino’s social media fail last month? Better to be proactive rather than reactive, after all.

I’m not sure if Pizza coined the term “Twintern” but when searching the term, Pizza Hut is connected with all the initial hits. Could social media internships be the new hot thing for college kids? I know I would have jumped at the chance to Tweet on behalf of a company instead of making copies and answering phones like I did as an intern. But Pizza Hut advancing this gig has brought about some questioning:

Twitter, to-date, hasn’t been too popular with the college-age and teenage demographics. As Liana Evans, a writer for Search Engine Watch, points out, if Pizza Hut truly wanted to succeed in social media, the company would go where their audience is — which likely isn’t Twitter. “Rather than having their PR Company get spin out of their foray into social media with this “Twittern” announcement, they would have done the research to see that reaching a college student audience wouldn’t be accomplished utilizing Twitter. College age students have yet to truly appreciate Twitter.”

An article posted on CNB.com states that the Twintern news indicates two things about corporate America’s understanding of Twitter:

1. Corporate America has a sense that they should be on Twitter — and hey, it’s free — but they really have no idea what it’s about.

2. Companies like Pizza Hut assume that since Twitter’s all over the news and that because people like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher tweet, college kids must be into it, too.

Some bloggers on the subject seem to think that Pizza Hut should have been on Twitter long ago and that yeah, this Twintern idea has legs. The only thing that trips me up is the fact that a summer intern is with a company typically for 10-12 weeks, which is not enough time to fully get the culture of a big company like Pizza Hut. A Twintern might tweet about she thinks she should be tweeting about. But isn’t the beauty of Twitter about having personality and being transparent? Part of me doubts the value that this Twintern will provide.

I think I’d much rather read tweets coming from a Pizza Hut delivery boy — authenticity rules.