Domino's Didn't Deliver: Social Media Fail Whale

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Yeah, go on! Scoot! Nothing to see here!

I was just going to let the whole thing go.

But after a week of reading countless industry blogs praising Domino's and its response to the now infamous viral video of two employees desecrating a sandwich, I just couldn't. Not when Domino's is being applauded for what's essentially nothing short of splashing around the big fail whale tail.

Domino's may know the recipe for the pizza that put 20 pounds on me in college, but it missed a couple of key ingredients on its PR strategy:

1) Speed of Response

Domino's failed on two counts with speed. While I respect that Domino's VP of Communications Tim McIntyre took action once he got news of the video, it wasn't the company that identified and isolated the video and it should have been. Because of a lack of social media tentacles, precious time was lost. And a lot of people saw the video. 

Barf bags abounded.

Speed of response? It was readers of the Consumerist, the now famous Amy Wilson and "whyerhead" who saw the video on YouTube and took the initiative to figure out where the offensive video originated and called the store directly. For Domino's as a company I'm envisioning more of a "deer-in-the-headlights" look as opposed to Speed Racer rushing in to take down the baddies. Let's face it. Domino's was not in position to act quickly. They just got lucky that a savvy internet user had some time on their hands and spared the company an additional million or so viewers on YouTube.

Which brings us to the second way Domino's failed on speed. The internet moves fast. Real fast. The company was basically trying to win a drag race in a 72' Pinto. With a late start. Even though the company is now priding itself and being lauded by some pretty big names for its quick actions, the internet was moving faster. Way faster. The race was lost.

But had Domino's already built up a Twitter community of say even a modest 10,000, the Domino's tweeter would have either been alerted by a follower in the minutes after the offending video was uploaded or they would have (hopefully) been using a search client like TweetDeck or Twhirl and would have known the second the words "Domino" "Domino's" or "pizza" hit the Twittersphere. If they were plugged into blogs and connected to social media trail blazers, that video wouldn't have had a fighting chance.

Lesson for Domino's: Forget those snappy UPS commercials about moving at the speed of business. Today it's about "moving at the speed of opinion." And you can't be detecting opinion and crafting opinion when you're fumbling around in the pit while everyone else is on the race course.

2) Proactivity

For starters, Domino's appeared to have no plan on how to handle a social media crisis, or even know what a social media plan would look like for that matter. They wrangled up management behind closed doors and reportedly didn't include their creative agency or other consultants in the decision-making process. I can only think of one word to sum up what that smells like: panic. Okay and fear.

Definitely not proactivity.

A company that has a social media plan in place would have their agency in the room counseling on the appropriate tactics and reviewing the plan. Unfortunately, Domino's was most likely formulating objectives, strategies, and tactics all in one hasty, heparin-popping meeting. Which no doubt culminated in someone running out of the conference room, knocking co-workers into walls, and stumbling over coffee-bearing interns as they raced to their office to create a Twitter account.

This is what happens when you're not proactive. Things get messy. Coffee gets spilled. People in suits have to run.

3) Creativity

The Domino's video response was the biggest fail whale of the whole thing. Because it left so much on the table. There was nothing creative about it. It was public relations 80's style. No brand personality. No finesse. No charm. Just business. 

It might have worked brilliantly in 1983 but today it felt awkward. It was as if Gordon Gecko walked onto an Edward Jones commercial and proclaimed "Greed is Good!" with a cheshire smirk, expecting a round of here here's. (Sadly, that might have actually worked ten years ago). With today's Wall Street crisis, it would have been grossly out of place. 

This is along the same lines of how the Domino's video response was irrelevant to today's audience. Okay, maybe not so dramatic. But without taking into account today's audience and the internet climate, Domino's message was out of touch. They used the right tools but with the wrong voice. While watching the video of Domino's president Patrick Doyle I wanted to look over my shoulder to see who he was talking to. My dad maybe? 

Creatively, the video could have been so much more. And I don't mean high production value: 

This instant in time for Domino's was the hero moment. It was begging for a brand home run. Domino's didn't ask to have its image thrust into the media so publicly and negatively, but it was given an unlikely opportunity to shine, to build the brand even stronger, and to come out looking like the hero of Pizza brands. What they could have done was fight fire with fire and create a video of their own that incorporated the brand at its best. It could have been a self-deprecating, aw-shucks moment of brilliance that made the public feel good and LOVE Domino's.

Instead they love Susan Boyle. 

The world was waiting for a wronged underdog to champion. And Domino's failed to seize that moment.

Domino's took the stuffy corporate route. Patrick Doyle didn't come across as a personable follow-me kind of guy, but more like a stunned corporate stiff that just had the side of his Lamborghini keyed. 

Basically, the video just felt wrong. It didn't fix anything. And it didn't seize that special moment that could have been leveraged to build the brand. It felt like an Olympic relay team dropping the baton and losing the gold on the last 100 yards of the race. It's terrible that this happened and Patrick Doyle has every right to be upset. But go be upset behind closed doors with a bottle of Glenmorangie. This was the chance for the brand to shine. It was a time to creatively embrace the role of underdog hero. And own it.

A lot of industry bigwigs are probably in the process of inking book deals on the crisis. And B-school textbook scholars are no doubt adding case study pages next to the Tylenol fast-reaction bottle tampering chapter. All of them gushing about how great Domino's PR crisis management was.

But for me and other social media strategists who have a new set of priorities and see the social media landscape as far more than another broadcast medium, and certainly more than an afterthought, we'll be penciling in Domino's as new media's first big brand fail whale.

With any luck, at least a handful of scholars are quickly moving their Domino's chapter a little closer to the one with the Exxon Valdez. Reevaluating the rules of PR. Learning to move at the speed of opinion.

And thinking twice before ordering a pizza.

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