On one hand, I LOVED the idea of Domino's Turnaround campaign when it first started out sometime last year. It publicized the company's focus groups, they accepted responsibility for making junk pizzas and they not only changed the recipe, but they started showing up at the homes and jobs of the focus group members who had the most negative comments and surprising them with the new pizza. (Which I must say has improved greatly. Yum!) I thought this was a great way to incorporate customer satisfaction into their advertising and show that they were listening to what their customers had to say. I loved the idea of the Show Us Your Pizza photo contest held by Domino's, as well as the public apology ad by the CEO of Domino's for a pizza that showed up looking like it was scraped off the side of the road. All-in-all, I thought this campaign was a brilliant strategic move for the company. It made customers feel like their opinion mattered, and I'm sure that Domino's sales have shot through the roof as a result.
On the other hand...okay. You know that friend who says something quick and witty in a conversation and everyone laughs, and then they feel encouraged by the laughter and start forcing more jokes that aren't organic to the conversation? Yeah. Domino's is being THAT guy right now. The latest Domino's ads have been centered around filmed "focus groups" consisting of people who claim not to believe that Domino's puts food in their food. Really? Come on, Domino's. I was able to believe that someone said your old pizza had rubbery cardboard crust...because that was kind of true; but I refuse to subscribe to the notion that people don't believe that there are tomatoes in your sauce. So much so, in fact, that in order to prove that there are real tomatoes in your new sauce and real milk in your new cheese, you have to take the focus group to an actual tomato or dairy farm in a car with blacked out windows.
It might just be me, but I feel like Domino's is taking this a bit far. Focus groups and customer polls about the old Domino's pizza were pretty bad, but pretty accurate. Now that the pizza has changed in recipe and flavor for consistently about a year now, the focus groups shouldn't be outlandishly worse. That isn't the logical progression of things. There are better ways to advertise the website and the interactive map of where all your new ingredients come from. I don't buy it, Domino's. Start filming your focus groups where people say positive things about your new delicious pizza, say something along the lines of "Mission Accomplished" and move on to a new campaign before everyone gets wise and goes to Pizza Hut.
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