Recently, I found myself reading about Domino’s Pizza. Mainly, I was quite interested in the game-changing marketing campaign the popular pizza company launched in 2009.
Known for speedy delivery and low prices, Domino’s has also been widely criticized for turning out poor quality pizza – cardboard, if you will. To address the negative brand perceptions, Domino’s launched a marketing and advertising campaign that was anything but typical. One article has a humorous take on it :
“Let’s say you make mass-produced pizza that tastes like cardboard. How would you sell it?
A) Hire Jessica Simpson as a spokesperson to tell everyone how good your pizza tastes
B) Have your founder drive across the country in a classic sports car to tell everyone how great your pizza tastes
C) Launch a nationwide campaign to tell everyone how bad your pizza tastes (and then make it better)”
Domino’s ‘anything but typical’ approach was option C. In 2009, Domino's launched a campaign that openly acknowledged the criticism surrounding their “cardboard” pizza.
To many, this sounded like marketing suicide. This isn’t Buckley’s cough medicine – you can’t just say “It tastes bad but we get it to you mighty fast!” That’s not going to fly.
To follow up with their open acknowledgment of the problem - bad pizza - Domino’s took another important step by publicly conducting a complete revamp of their menu and “original recipe.” To much surprise in the marketplace, the campaign was a huge success and still goes strong today. Domino’s still uses transparency as a key marketing strategy, extending the concept to social media like Twitter and Facebook, embracing both praise and criticism from consumers.
As social media gives more consumers and end users a voice, transparent marketing, like this Domino’s campaign, may become a necessity. If you have a restaurant, odds are people are talking about you online. People can broadcast their thoughts and ideas to large audiences, both locally—within their personal networks—and globally, through their friends’ friends. When someone wants to know if X business is any good, she needs only to search #Xbusiness on Twitter to see what people are saying.
So listen! Don’t ignore what’s being said about your business – in blogs, on Twitter, on Facebook etc. Take the time to see what’s being said about you. Particularly, look for criticism, and respond openly. Throwing down brand slogans and ad speak won’t save you in the world of social media.
Now, I’m not suggesting that every business take the extreme approach that Domino’s did. Chances are, your product and brand image don’t need a total revamp. But getting a Twitter account and Facebook page set up is easy. Listening and responding to customers in a way that is honest and personal is too.
With the idea of transparency in my mind, I was struck by a news piece I heard on the radio while driving home from work. McDonald’s in Canada recently launched a new All-Access Moms program, inviting a select group of Mom bloggers to a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of McDonald’s. An article I found about the program sums up the basics:
“The All-Access Moms program, a joint endeavor between McDonald’s and the television show Cityline, gives five blogging Canadian mothers a chance to visit McDonald’s head offices, french fry facilities and charitable Ronald McDonald Houses. Accompanying the bloggers on the tour is Cityline parenting expert Nanny Robina. Those chosen to participate will catalogue their experiences on their own blogs as well as a microsite devoted to the program.”
Transparency is at the heart of this program. Karin Campbell, senior manager of external communications for McDonald’s Canada explains:
“It’s a response to the questions that we know Canadians have about our brand,” said Campbell of the program. “This is just a more formal way to answer them and use an important customer for us, which is moms, to answer stakeholder questions… If their questions aren’t answered, this is a transparent program, and they can write that.”
A customer tour through your shop is nothing new, I’m sure. But inviting a group of influential bloggers to see the inner workings and discuss anything they see or think about your restaurant through social media is a very interesting idea. McDonald’s clearly recognizes the importance of social media in shaping brand perception. Their choice of participants was also interesting – moms with popular blogs. Basically, these social media moms are key influencers for other moms. If they decide that chicken snack wraps are a healthy choice for their kids’ lunches, you can bet that other moms will do the same.
In a world where consumers’ opinions on brands are shaped by their peers, and not by one-way adspeak, honesty and transparency are critical. If major players like Domino’s and McDonald’s are running with this trend, clearly there’s value in it. So take the time to solicit feedback—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and to listen and respond. And make an effort to identify and reach out to the key influencers in your market, the way McDonald’s is doing with blogging moms.
In fact, this has me thinking. Interested in an inside look at how a POS developer works?