Customer Speak – A Marketing Blog from Bridgz Marketing Group

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it very interesting to watch what appears to be a desperation move (or is it a Kamikaze mission?) by Domino’s Pizza, as the company has launched an aggressive mea culpa campaign using traditional advertising and social media, including a high visibility video on YouTube, in an attempt to resuscitate its dying brand. The campaign is essentially an admission that their pizza sucks — at least in the minds of customers. Domino’s has listened and is responding with a complete overhaul of the product.

Domino’s president Patrick Doyle speaks to us from his corporate headquarters in Ann Arbor about how painful it was to hear focus group participants describe how bad his pizza is; the crust tastes like cardboard, the sauce like ketchup, the cheese tasteless and processed. The average frozen pizza is far superior. A vocal leader in the focus group sessions, a woman named Adrian, proclaims it to be the worst excuse for pizza she’s ever seen. Ouch. That’s not a wound, it’s a head shot.

Doyle and his band of pizza chefs tell us how painful this all was to hear, but claim that they’re taking the criticism to heart and working day and night to come up with a whole new recipe with better ingredients, as the camera zooms in on a beauty shot of their new and improved pizza creation. The new product looks pretty good on video, but I have serious doubts they can deliver on this promise across thousands of retail outlets.

For me the real issue is not whether the pizza is better, but whether the brand can be revived or the social media campaign will have a reverse effect and put a fork in it forever.  Based on the initial tweets I’m reading it may likely be the latter. We’ll stay tuned as the pizza chefs go knocking on Adrian’s door to see what she thinks, if indeed it matters to anyone. I can’t help but think this all seems a little contrived.