Domino’s and Social Media: Turning a Crisis into an Opportunity
As a relative newcomer to studying social media and the way that brands use it to enhance their business, I have generally thought of Domino’s as being one of the savvier brands when it comes to handling social media. I have the Domino’s app, and the first thing that comes to mind is their recent ads promoting the fact that you can order your favorite pizza with a simple emoji:
However, it wasn’t always this way. Back in 2009, Domino’s found itself in a near-disastrous situation when a couple of employees actually filmed themselves putting snot on a sandwich before it went out for delivery. The video went viral, and was picked up by mainstream media:
Domino’s initially struggled to catch on to what was happening. They had a fairly minimal presence on social media. Fortunately they had many loyal fans who alerted them to what was going on.
Perhaps their biggest mistake was in not putting out an initial response, something along the lines of “we are looking into this and will keep you posted.” However, eventually they got ahead of it, setting up a Twitter account and posting an official apology, and later posting a very genuine official response video on YouTube. Here they did several things well: they posted it on YouTube; optimized the video to show up next to the initial problem videos; showed true humility; explained what they were doing to correct the situation (they closed the store in North Carolina where it happened); and actually followed through on it.
Perhaps the most important thing is the clear sincerity of Patrick Doyle, President of Domino’s USA: “It sickens me that the actions of two individuals could impact our great system, where 125,000 men and women work for local business owners around the US and more than 60 countries around the world. We take tremendous pride in crafting delicious food that they deliver to you every day.”
Of course, this might have been a spark that allowed Domino’s to turn its weak social media presence into a source of strength. In fact, it used the incident to refresh its brand nationally across all media platforms. They created a new website (http://pizzaturnaround.com/) to document what it was doing, and embraced Twitter, using the #newpizza hashtag to spark a conversation with consumers about how to improve what it was doing. It was successful; Stephen Colbert even had a whole segment on the campaign — it’s not entirely positive — Colbert makes fun of how Domino’s is simultaneously admitting that they suck while asking the customer to come back for more, but is pretty good press less than a year after their disaster.
Granted, I missed the “Boogergate” disaster in 2009, but it does help me understand why Domino’s has become pretty good at social media in 2016.
