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

If you've shown up here, why don't you mosey on over to my new blog? Yeah, I just soft launched The BrandForward Blog. It's at http://michelletripp.com. You can find all the same posts you can find here. But it's a bit more pretty.

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.

***

Ghost Tweeting is the Milli Vanilli of Web 3.0.

If you've shown up here, why don't you mosey on over to my new blog? Yeah, I just soft launched The BrandForward Blog. It's at http://michelletripp.com. You can find all the same posts you can find here. But it's a bit more pretty.

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

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Today I did the unthinkable. For a Mac fangirl it was absolutely preposterious. Egregious. Some might say sacrilegious. Or at least some sort of something with an "ous" at the end. Seriously.

I unfollowedous Guy Kawasakious.

As I rifled through my follow list, my heart was pounding. Was I really going to do it? Was I going to extricate myself from the biggest Twitter party on the planet? Could I really let go of @guykawasaki? Could I accept being relegated to the Twitter clueless who wouldn't know a Guy Kawasaki from a lawn mower? I mean really. Who doesn't follow Guy Kawasaki. And if I dared to hit the ominous "remove" button would he swiftly launch his minions upon me in a mass unfollow? What could I possibly be thinking??? Am I nuts?

(Click.)

I hold my breath. I look around. The sky isn't darkening. Storm clouds not rolling in. No scowling Vincent Price peering through the window. No gargoyles to speak of.

So like, whew! I really did it. I broke up with Guy Kawasaki. No tears. No regrets. And no blood was shed. Or maybe his minions just didn't have my street address. Finally, I had my freedom. Churn, baby, churn.

This is what happens when you do bad. People walk away. They unfollow. They untrust. I am now unceremoniously referring to it as #guyfail. When you represent something so awesome, but then somehow lose what made you awesome to begin with. Guy Kawasaki used to get it. But when he announced last week at #SESNY that he has three ghost tweeters writing under his Twitter account, I realized somewhere along the way, he lost it. If he can't see the incredible value of a genuine, unfiltered Twitter persona and the abomination that is a ghosted account, then my friends the man no longer gets it. And it's time to pass the mantle.

Sure, Guy might get it in a Web 2.0 kind of way, understanding that he must have presence. Write articles. Make Twitter accounts. Build empire. But that's not Web 3.0. The new era of social media is about more than just making sure you have 30 pithy tweets per day attributed to your name. It's about CONNECTING. For reals.

Yeah, I can hear it now. The voice out there saying it's okay to ghost for a brand, and hey, isn't Guy Kawasaki a brand? Well, let me ask you this. Aren't we ALL brands today? Isn't it the new mantra that everyone needs to have "reputation management?" And aren't we all supposed to be building our "personal brands?" How fast would any one of us get unfollowed if it got out that it's not really us behind our Twitter. Or behind our blog. If you found out that Seth Godin wasn't writing his blog would you value him as much? Would his blog feel the same? Would you respect him in the same way? Would anything attached to his name carry the same weight? No, it really wouldn't.

It'd be kind of like walking down Canal Street and seeing a hundred women carrying Louis Vuitton handbags, and realizing maybe one or two of them MIGHT be genuine. Sure, they look nice and all. But having a designer handbag has lost a lot of its cachet. Because so many out there simply aren't real. This is what ghost tweeting does to social media. It injects doubt where there should be authenticity.

Think authenticity doesn't matter?

Put on your denim jacket and parachute pants and let's H.G. Wells ourselves back to the world of Milli Vanilli.

America loved Milli Vanilli. Six times platinum loved them. Grammy for Best New Artist in 1990. But then it came out that the two guys on the cover didn't sing a note on the album. We all know where the story goes after that. Now maybe Guy Kawasaki doesn't want a Milli Vanilli debacle on his hands. So he's using a little Web 2.0 swagger and admitting to ghost tweeters in the name of transparency. But doing that is what makes it so clear he doesn't get it. Because it's not just about connecting and presence and faux transparency.

The magic of social media is in the authenticity.

And if you think people just want the content and don't care about things being authentic, take a look at Milli Vanilli's career after their fans found out about the deception. Lawsuits all over the U.S. with angry album buyers and concert-goers demanding their money back. They didn't seem to care that the albums were great. They didn't care that the concerts were entertaining. It didn't matter that Milli Vanilli's songs were burning up the charts, or that the duo was an MTV darling. The fans wanted authenticity. They wanted it to be real.

Sad thing is, social media is ALL about being real. At the core of what makes social media such a fantastic tool for branding, marketing, and communicating is that it allows consumers to connect on a real, personal level to brands they care about.

But dear Guy Kawasaki, there's a difference between Coca Cola having ghost tweeters and you having ghost tweeters. Last I heard, Coca Cola isn't human. I don't see a smiling, toothy pic of Mr. Coca Cola on Coca Cola's Twitter profile. However, there is one of you. A brand you may be, but if you're going to set up a Twitter account that you don't have the time to deal with genuinely and authentically (ie. Guy Kawasaki, the human, isn't going to be the author of Guy Kawasaki "the tweets") maybe consider changing the name to guykawasakifanclub or guykawasakiinc. And then think about maybe putting an image of a book on your profile. Or an Apple. Or a gargoyle.

Because if @guykawasaki pops up in my timeline, I want to know it was his fingers touching every key on the keypad and that he had that same last-second "do I really want to tweet this" moment we all have before hitting UPDATE. And that occasional tweegret. Because if it's not really you behind the curtain, your account doesn't have AUTHENTICITY. And I've lost a little trust in you. I'm looking at your blog a little differently know. I'll still read it, but the love isn't there. You're now some dude in an ivory tower, sipping mocha frappuccinos shuttled in by an intern. Overseeing your vast domain from afar. Letting the little people eat cake. Give me the @names of your ghost tweeters so I can start following them. And I'll take that intern's name, too.

Yes, people are brands. But they won't be for long if they start acting like a brand, and stop acting like a human.

So yeah, ghost tweeting is not in the spirit of social media, and definitely not in the spirit of Twitter. If social media's value is ultimately in its authenticity, and one of social media's greatest networkers is not using his Twitter authentically, then who else out there is faking it? And can anyone, or any brand for that matter, really be trusted?

Because if Guy Kawasaki says it's okay to put your photo and your name on Twitter and then hire someone to impersonate you, and be a filter between you and the people who buy your books, and go to your speeches and click on the advertisers on your blog and support your new projects, well hell! Maybe it's okay for everyone else! To heck with authenticity.

Which leads us to a total social media meltdown. Back to the days when brands spoke "at" the masses for no purpose other than to create what was ultimately a flimsy connection to gain market share. Do we really want to go back there? With all the opportunity we have to make a difference with social media?

Maybe it really is time for the mantle to be passed. Maybe Guy Kawasaki having ghost tweeters is a good thing. To mark the edge of the chasm. To mark the difference between the social media Milli Vanilli's and the NEW "revolutionaries."

To be sure, this was a difficult post to write. Because I've been a Guy Kawasaki faithful for at least a decade. And loved his Apple branding genius well before that. But creating evangelists is a double-edged sword. Because sometimes they pay attention.

Be revolutionary. Be authentic. And when your heroes veer off the path, never forget this one important thing:

Where the "remove" button is located.

(And where you can quickly hide to escape the gargoyles.)

Social Media Experts Are Scary.

If you've shown up here, why don't you mosey on over to my new blog? Yeah, I just soft launched The BrandForward Blog. It's at http://michelletripp.com. You can find all the same posts you can find here. But it's a bit more pretty.

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

-----

This is the kind of post that gets you unfollowed. A post with some very unpopular ideas. We'll call it the Hitler of blog posts. And considering it's a Twitter #followfriday I should probably come up with something a bit more butterflies and sunshine. Or at least margaritas and martinis.

But no. Not me. I like to live on the wild side. Kinda like companies who hire "social media experts."

So here's where I get in trouble today: I think this whole "social media expert" thing is getting really out of hand. Really. And not just because every other person with a Facebook account, a plane ticket to Austin, and a Twitter badge is claiming to be one. It's because even if a true social media expert actually exists, calling yourself one is just another way of saying "I know enough to be dangerous."

By even using the words social media expert it's like you're intentionally not choosing to say marketing expert. Because that would be hard to pull off if you're not one. But social media expert. That's easy. Have Twitter account, will travel.

Which is why social media experts scare me. Because by definition they're not marketing experts.

DOH!

For all the flashing lights and shooting stars, social media is simply a tool. Technically it's an advertising medium. When someone says they're a social media expert it carries the same weight as if someone said "I'm a cable media expert." Okay. That's just one medium. Yes, being an expert of a medium does have value. But I'm not going to hand over a blank sheet of paper and expect my cable rep to write a comprehensive marketing program or decide what the best message is, or work on creative or manage the client's brand. Or (gasp!) all of the above.

Which is what I'm seeing a lot of social media'ers trying to do. Using the term "social media expert" interchangeably with "marketing expert." Which is why it's so scary.

So with all due disrespect when I see iPhone app writers and web site designers and 26 year-old "self-employed" twitterers and mommybloggers claiming the title of "social media expert" I feel like I'm Alice in Wonderland. Falling down a really deep hole. Into a world where anyone can be an expert, and having a few years experience and barely any real marketing under their belt somehow confers the status of rock star. It's like strategic marketing never existed. Like Elvis walked in and everyone lost their head and started throwing panties.

A lot of people with knowledge of the internet but little or no marketing experience are riding the social media hype to make a buck. Or launch a new career. And because a lot of companies don't have the first idea how to proceed in the social media space they're forced to trust these "experts" for marketing advice.

A train wreck we are a'pproachin.

So let's digress for a moment. Let's assume there is such an animal. The social media expert. The rock star. Versed in all things Twitter, Facebook, Flicker, YouTube, Vimeo, and you name it. Let's just call them channels. Thing is I don't ever remember any of my cable reps fancying themselves up and announcing they're an expert. I respect them for that. Which is why I have an issue with the social media variety. The humility is missing. They're not happy as simply the purveyors of media planning information. They want to be on stage. With the panties.

So panties aside, I trust cable reps to provide recommendations that include (quantitative) demographics, reach, frequency, GRP, CPP, and CPM for every channel on the line-up. Similarly I would also trust a social media rep for the same type of advice for social media. Am I going to let them dictate what percentage of my budget belongs in social media? No. Am I going to let them have carte blanche to develop creative and determine the best message? No. Am I going to trust them to handle Adsense and affiliate marketing? Unless they can prove they were too busy with clients to get anywhere near SXSWi, probably not.

What's truly the scariest part of the "social media expert" craze is a lot of companies are getting caught up in the glitz and glam of social media and letting these "experts" have a go at their marketing budget like Mike Tyson at a casting call for America's Next Top Model. And even a lot of ad agencies are parading their shiny, new "social media departments" in front of clients. Further feeding the frenzied perception that social media experts are the second coming.

Now don't get me wrong. Social media and internet marketing are good things. And I believe in SEO, SMO, SEM, SMM, CGM, PPC, CTR, PFI, SERP, CPC, SES, and OMG. And I love love love social media. I'm right there with it. No fewer than a hundred beta accounts to prove it. Internet is an effective advertising medium. And social media is an amazing marketing tool. But it's just a tool.

Kinda like the Twitter search tool I'll be using later to check my #unfollowfridays.

Bloggers who pop the big smiley-face balloon of social media can't exactly expect to be a twitterverse favorite, now can we?

Twitter isn't meaningful communication?

Yeah. Yet another Twitter post. But trust me, this one's worth it.
Lots of juice. With pulp.

So let's just get things started:

"Twitter isn’t meaningful communication."

Where's the laughing emoticon when you need it? Someone really said that. And because it ranks right up there with the Best of the Worst Tech Predictions Known To Man, I figured I’d dig up a few others to emphasize how quickly some “industry experts” clamor to be the voice of reason when technology starts seeming a bit too sci-fi for them.


“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943


“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946


“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977


“Apple is already dead.”
Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft chief technology officer, 1997


“I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”
Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995


“[The] ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union, 1879


“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.”
Prentice Hall (Publishing), 1957


And now we present for your enjoyment:

“Twitter isn’t meaningful communication.”


I actually came across this on the Daily Beast blog site. You should read the blog. http://tinyurl.com/cdjr6f. Good times.

Given Twitter’s sheer ability to allow people to communicate and access RELEVANT INTERESTING CONCISE information in real time, it’s hard to believe anyone who’s given an honest five minutes to Twitter could bash it with a straight face.

What it comes down to is that there’s a lot going on with social media right now. You’ve got the people who are adapting on one side of the fence, and the ones that are behind the curve on the other. Instead of stepping over and catching up, some of the traditionalists are trying to hide behind their comfy blogs, hoping by denouncing anything they don't immediately understand they can just make it all go away. I mean seriously, the last couple of “anti-social media” blogs I’ve come across have sounded more like overwhelmed rants than astute observations. I think deep down they know something's coming, but they're just not ready to make all the huge, sweeping changes that come along with it.

It’s starting to seem like the issue is less about the product and more about operator error. I think the next time I come across a blog that rants against social media I’ll post something in the comments that’s simple and easy for them to comprehend:

Adaption FAIL.

Defending Twitter

Now here's the deal. This post is going to suck. No attention to grammar. No smooth segues. No cloying humor. And forget a tidy tie-in at the end. It seems I'm addicted to twitter and don't have time to be bothered by the particulars of a blog anymore. The world out there is spinning and churning and scrolling while I'm stuck in this little box. I feel... so... isolated.

Which is why it perplexes me that anyone (especially someone in the business of COMMUNICATING) could have two bad words to say about twitter. It's the greatest thing since sliced facebook.

But apparently Bob Hoffman (The Ad Contrarian), CEO of Hoffman/Lewis San Francisco isn't hitching a ride on this freedom train.

"How the narcissistic keep in touch with the feckless"

is his personal take on this whole newfangled toy the kids are playing with. http://tinyurl.com/cdhn8j. Hmmm. By his own admission his opinion is founded on... ahem... two bold encounters. But he claims psychologists support his observations, so it must be right.

Why yes, it's absolutely logical. That someone who isn't active on twitter would look from the outside and peep in like an octogenarian listening in on high school chatter. Tsk! Tsk!

Or that someone who's dedicated their career to the study and treatment of mental health disorders would dance in glee over the prospect of a new "ailment/addiction/syndrome" suffered by millions of people... who by happenstance love talking about themselves. Match made in heaven.

So yeah, a guy who doesn't get twitter (or get on it for that matter) and a group of PhDs whose whole existence (and Mercedes payments) hinge on VERBAL twitter are going to pound the gavel? I think not.

My two things about twitter:

1. I don't care if half the people on twitter are narcissistic and the other half are cross-dressers. THEY ARE THE CONSUMER AND THIS IS WHERE THEY LIVE. This is who they are, and the job of the marketer/brander/ad guy is to figure out what's valuable to them and what will motivate them to connect with a brand.

2. Twitter turns conventional media on its head. For that matter it's turning facebook (and google!) on its head. Think of the record companies and their reaction to new media: They're so attached to their 50 year-old business model they don't see opportunity when she comes knocking at the door in the middle of the night with a bottle of Jameson and a box of Trojans.

Okay, here's one more thing:

3. For every cool old ad guy that's drinking from the twitter cup, there's another old ad guy that's feeling a bit squirmy about a medium where a corporation doesn't control the content, a corporation can't use tired analytics to measure ROI, and a corporation doesn't write the monthly retainer check. Of course he's not going to like twitter! Or those pesky kids who use it.

Twitter haters, RIAA executives... what's the difference. The world is changing and they're about to become obsolete. The ones that will still be standing in 5/10 years are the ones that realize the consumer really, truly is RIGHT. And not in a lip service kind of way. The consumer is right because the consumer finally has control over the options. Twitter being one of them. A big one of them.

Methinks squirmy ad guys should embrace what the world embraces. Learn to love what you don't understand. Face down what scares you. (It's called GROWTH.)

And this is where I'd normally throw in some quippy little kicker of a wrap-up but that would take an extra five minutes. And a lot can happen on twitter in five minutes.

(Why are you still here??? Get back there!)