A Delicate Domino for Domino’s Pizza
It sounds funny but this time Domino’s Pizza is dealing with a delicate domino.
Long story short: Two Domino’s employees took a video while doing some disgusting things with pizza ingredients. The video went viral.
The video has been removed due to a copyright claim by Kristy Hammonds but if you didn’t watch it yesterday and are interested (I’m definitely not) in checking it out the Consumerist has its own copy.
The two employees got apparently fired.
Story’s over? Not exactly. Although these two individuals claim that what they did was intended to be a prank the ball keeps rolling. In fact the video counts 690,571 views (in just a couple of days).
There’s something more at stake. Domino now must regain the trust of its customers.
- How? Domino should step in and join the conversation in a very careful and smart way making sure of avoiding additional potential damage to this really delicate situation.
- Why? Because it’s also listening and participating to that conversation that could help Domino in reducing/containing the damage, save the brand from this imminent public relations disaster and ultimately craft a new campaign to relaunch the brand.
Domino is showing a ‘traditional approach’ in dealing with what’s going on but I doubt it’s going to be enough. Mainstream media already started to spread the news + Domino doesn’t seem to have a strong crisis management strategy able to deal with what’s happening in the social media space.
To realize what’s going on right now you just need to search for #domino and you’ll find a non-stop stream of results popping up at an almost scary speed so I think I’m going to leave this post open to eventual future updates. Meanwhile have a look at these related posts:
- Note to Domino’s Pizza: News travels fast, especially when it’s bad (Neville Hobson)
- Two employees threaten pizza chain’s reputation (Shel Holtz)
- The Domino’s Effect (Brian Solis)
- A Domino’s PR Disaster in the Making? (Barbara Nixon)
Andrea
UPDATE (Apr. 15th 2009): By the time I finished to write this post the video is counting 728,816
UPDATE (Apr. 16th 2009): The initial video uploaded by the two Domino’s (now former) employees collected a scary number of something like a million views in just few days. It has been removed due to a copyright claim by Kristy Hammonds but if you didn’t watch it yesterday and are interested (I’m definitely not) in checking it out the Consumerist has its own copy.
I was happy to see that Domino paid attention and listening to the online conversation. Here’s the direct video response by Patrick Doyle (President of Domino’s USA).
Well done, a really good message. The only suggestion: I agree with what Daniel pointed out in the comments, @Patrick look straight into the camera next time, it will make way more personal.
Another plus: http://twitter.com/dpzinfo Domino’s enaged with the community also via Twitter.
This is a great example that should make think brands about their online presence, online reputation and especially about the effectiveness (or not) of their crisis management strategy.
Author: Andrea Vascellari
Andrea Vascellari is the CEO of itive.net. All thoughts and opinions on this blog are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or clients; neither past or present. If you liked this post feel free to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe to this blog.
Ouch! Have you read this page on their website http://tinyurl.com/d7fax7 ? So much about the differences between internal and external communications!
If “the team members”, as domino says, really took “pride” in the company, these two wouldn’t have got the idea to make such a video in the first place! They were not taking their job seriously and that’s what comes out of such a situation.
It’s all about communications! They’d better care more about what they DO instead of just words. Shouting out loud “We’re great” doesn’t make the company automatically BE great! q.e.d.
If they were smart they would follow-up somehow turning the attention to something positive for them.
@Annette: yes, after what happened it definitely feels strange readying on their site “We take pride in our team members and our team members take pride in Domino’s Pizza!”
It will be interesting to see which is going to be Domino’s next move (if any).
Yes “if any”, that’s what I thought. But if so, I suppose you’ll keep us posted?
Btw. this also relates to your previous blogpost. Maybe domino wasn’t aware that digital communication (i.e. YouTube) isn’t just a fashy thing?
@Annette: hehh! well one thing is sure… if they had a crisis strategy or at least a social media team they could have react much faster…
I just got the link to Dominos Video-respons to it. And it is dull. Very traditional answer, just on a new platform/channel. The dude is not even looking into the camera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l6AJ49xNSQ This will be very interesting to follow. “The Domino effect” just got a new meaning.
@Daniel: Thanks for the link, I just updated the post.
Good move to open the twitter account and nice try with the video.
@Patrick I agree with Andrea: Better not read something beside the camera but speak to the camera.
Now: ACT instead of re-acting only!
How about some videos of happy domino’s customers or motivated team members next? Show domino’s shops, tell their stories, ask people about their experiences with the products, which one is their favourite and why? Anything special happened to them while/after buying your products? Give incentives for customers to tell their positive domino stories for you!
Use the attention and turn it into something good for your brand!
@Annette: You make valid points. It’s nice to see that they moved in the social media space (I think it’s already something!) but you can feel in the air that people are expecting something more, some actions as you said.
What must be said is that now Domino has to move really carefully with its communication strategy. I think they are planning something but we are not talking about a small company so it will probably take a while to see a ’smart move’ in that direction.
They are definitely aware about the fact that lots of people are looking at them, and they want to move on in the right direction.
Of course now they have to use this high level of attention they gained as an advantage. By waiting for too long before making a new step they will risk to lose the momentum.
It’s really delicate.
Indeed what could speed up the process would be a dedicated social media team but again it’s still to early to say, we’ll see.
PS. Two German blogposts about this:
- http://tinyurl.com/cloa5d by @david_nelles (ethority)
- http://ff.im/-29HeO (fuellhaas)
@Annette: Thanks for extending the conversation
One more blogpost on this subject, this time from Austria and with another video – about McDonalds!