Welcome to the speed of the Internet and the lightning-fast pace at which it can bring a brand to its knees. Domino’s Pizza of Ann Arbor, Mich., developed a pitch-perfect, if not immediate, response to a roiling public-relations tsunami last month when it ran smack into “YouTube Boogergate.”
The lessons that Domino’s response provides to others in the foodservice industry should be deeply studied and then ingrained into corporate operations.
Competitor Pizza Hut, in fact, has developed a marketing department position for this summer for a college intern to focus on all the new Internet social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and YouTube.
Domino’s lesson began when two rogue workers at a Domino’s Pizza unit in North Carolina filmed themselves putting cheese in their nose and other stomach-turning acts with food, and then posted it to YouTube in April, where more than a million people viewed it before it was finally shut down.
Domino’s, unfortunately, did not respond publicly to the video immediately. However, when the exposure escalated through Twitter and other social media, the company acted decisively.
The company posted an apology on its website saying: “It is unfortunate that the thoughtless acts of two individuals overshadows the hard work performed by the 125,000 men and women working for Domino’s across the nation and in 60 countries around the world. Since the videos first surfaced, the two workers have been identified, fired and arrested under a felony warrant.”
Then Domino’s asked its employees to use their own Twitter accounts to tweet a link to it, which helped the company get its side of the story out to Internet bloggers.
Domino’s even created its own Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to reassure consumers and provide additional information.
Patrick Doyle, president of Domino’s USA, taped his own high-quality video and posted it to YouTube.
All the moves garnered high marks from crisis-management experts.
The company’s website said: “We’d like to thank our customers for their support. We’ve received numerous phone calls, e-mails and tweets thanking us for our immediate action. A company like ours has one currency, your trust. We appreciate your understanding as we work to regain the trust of our customers across the world.”
Trust, indeed, is as much a part of the foodservice experience as prompt delivery and quality products. The customer has to have the trust that their food is untainted, and Domino’s was deft in providing that assurance in the wake of the see-with-your-own-eyes negative exposure.
Among the lessons other food companies can take away from the Domino’s experience:
Keep an eye on social media: If you don’t have someone in your marketing department savvy about and conversant with the social networks, now is the time to find someone. The early discovery of negative comments and even posted videos can help in quickly responding to minimize the damage.
Provide a speedy response: Like viruses, the longer these social-media injuries have to fester, the worse the damage. Domino’s provided multilayered responses through Twitter and YouTube that helped minimize the damage.
Inform employees: Get your workers, who are most likely tied into extended social networks, to help get your message across. Be as honest with them as you are with the public.
Create a positive work environment: Happy employees that feel invested in your brand are more likely to protect it rather than try to bring it down.
Some public-relations professionals said an outright ban on cameras—video or still—would be impossible to police, given that some are the size of gum packs and have become such a part of society that it’s impossible to uphold such a prohibition.
Domino’s employees brought on a crisis of confidence in the brand that took the company much energy and long hours to help undo. But Domino’s showed it was nimble and fast in responding to the threat.
This likely will become a textbook case in public-relations crisis management. It is an example of how a company can and should respond to threats in the new social-media world. Even the responses by such new-media companies as Amazon, which in the same week as the Domino’s case stumbled badly in a controversy over its ranking of book sales that is still lingering in the blogosphere, pale in comparison to how Domino’s orchestrated its fantastic response to the YouTube video.
