Franko Ali, Stephanie Eckart,
Yevgeniya Litvinenko, Kathrine Marazita

DOMINO’S “SPECIAL” DELIVERY:
Going Viral Through Social Media

Pizza is one of the most well known American dining staples, and is considered easy and inexpensive for the average consumer. Domino’s Pizza is one of the most recognized and largest pizza outlets out of thousands of pizza brands around today. In a market segment that is highly competitive with numerous options of different brand options, each company works tirelessly to maintain brand image and corporate standards.
DEFINING THE PROBLEM The Domino’s Pizza Company faced its largest problem in its 49-year history in April 2009. The Vice President of Corporate Communications, Tim McIntyre was alerted to an issue regarding two Domino’s store employees, who would be later identified as Kristy Hammond and Michael Setzer, were behaving inappropriately. These employees posted videos online of themselves depicting unsanitary, disrespectful and inappropriate behavior on the job. These two employees didn’t think anything of their behavior until they got caught, then offered a lousy and unprofessional apology. Once the uploaded videos surfaced, Domino’s corporate executives were forced to act quickly. In order to do this they needed to ensure that no more videos would be posted, identify the employees and repair any possible damage to the reputation. McIntyre knew the videos could easily have had a larger impact on the Domino’s brand. All major companies face small problems everyday that are easily alleviated and/or fixed. These smaller scale issues teach and show company management how to react and settle said issues in the future. Business and public relations tools are required to be used and in precision detail. When a large scale incident or issue is presented, a given brand (like Domino’s) is put to the test to use the tools that the executives are equipped with. These larger issues have the priority to be nipped in the bud to extinguish any possible harm to the brand. Domino’s faced a number of problems with varying degrees of severity that required attention. Firstly, the ceasing of the inappropriate behavior and then lessening any possibility of damage to the Domino’s reputation and possible loss of customers was the immediate issue to deal with on McIntyre and Domino’s management priorities. McIntyre was most concerned about losing the trust of Domino’s valued consumers. With nearly 125,000 employees and having store presence in 60 countries, damage to the Domino’s brand effects not only the people directly involved but also the other stakeholders, such as franchisees and their employees across the country, as well as the local community’s reputation around the store in question. In the United States, where the videos were created, the economy was facing downward slope, fast-food markets, like takeout pizza, were not afford to be seen in a bad light in fear of losing the loyalty of shrinking number of consumer who could still afford to perches pizza. With much of the American population struggling to pay their bills, those families or individuals who can afford to order pizza, which is a highly competitive market in lower cost products, would not most likely order from a company who is portrayed in a negative light showcasing unsanitary behavior. Because of the external environment, McIntyre’s fear of losing customers loyalty was a justified reason to act immediately. Loyalty and trust of customers are vital aspects for any business to be highly successful and continue grow, especially in a current fast paced society. Having something as vile and gruesome as the videos taken in the Domino’s restaurant that were posted online, could be enough for customers to take their loyalty and trust elsewhere. These important factors of a brand: reputation, trust, loyalty, and image are all very important factors to the Domino’s business, and any business, that can be affected by the possible damages the posed videos could have caused. The underlying issue that the Domino’s executives inadvertently left out was the lack of management attention and awareness at the store level, a valid point to bring up during the evolution of this inappropriate video incident. Where was the store manager while these videos were taken, on multiple occasions? The fact that multiple videos were produced without a manager or supervisor being the wiser is startling considering the employees most likely portrayed inappropriate behavior before recording themselves. It is questionable how the store management got off so easily, as they were the ones to hire the employees in question. The amateur video makers, Hammond and Setzer’s actions could have potentially impacted both Domino’s profitability and the Domino’s image greatly, as no customer in their right mind would want to purchase pizza that they knew was subjected to unsanitary practices. Two employees could have caused irreversible harm to the Domino’s brand, by associating the multi-million dollar company with lack of sanitary practices and irresponsible behavior. Another problem that Domino’s has is the fact that they, as a company, wasn’t in touch with the image online. With society always changing and social media becoming more and more important in people’s daily lives it should be a priority to be aware and in as much control as possible of brand presence and reputation on the internet. A simple Google search of Domino’s would have alerted the company that inappropriate behavior was going on since five out of twelve search items were regarding Hammond and Setzer’s videos. These videos were then re-posted on various other websites including theconsumerist.com, perezhilton.com, dlisted.com, and the website who alerted McIntyre asgoodasyou.org. These videos were a problem that could have spiraled out of control, if they were not dealt with quickly. While it did spiral, McIntyre made it his priority and did his best to ensure that the issue was dealt with in a timely manner. Once the You Tube videos surfaced, less than approximately 15 minutes total, in multiple uploaded videos the Domino’s brand was vulnerable to many possibilities which, if not taken care of correctly, could have greatly affected the brand reputation and ultimately the brands profitability. McIntyre and his team were pushed to react both logically and efficiently to alleviate the situations and lessen any damages the Domino’s pizza organization faced resulting from You Tube videos depicting Domino’s in a bad light.
ANALYZING THE DATA On April 13, 2009, Domino’s Pizza had a wake-up call on how their business was being run, and the sudden realization of what could happen if their company had lost control. At 4:30pm, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Domino’s Pizza, Tim McIntyre, received an email alerting him of videos posted onto a popular video-sharing site, YouTube, containing foal footage of Domino’s Pizza employees. These employees were contaminating food to be delivered to Domino’s Pizza customers. They were doing such by taking pizza ingredients and contaminating them by placing these items in orifices of the body. Received from GoodAsYou.org, a GLBT advocacy blog site that was in turn alerted by the constant use of the term “gay,” forwarded these messages and video links to McIntyre in hopes to put an end to it. However, GoodAsYou.org posted these videos onto their site, and other blog sites grabbed the material and did the same. Within hours, these videos had gone viral, and McIntyre, who also handles all internal public relations, had to act quickly before Domino’s Pizza’s reputation went sour. Tim McIntyre needed to get a handle on things fast, and had to analyze his this situations to the best of his abilities to take correct actions. To make matters worse, there was no doubt that these amateur videos were happening in a Domino’s Pizza store. The female director of these videos, Kristi Hammond, and male actor, Michael Setzer, were in full Domino’s Pizza uniforms, during normal work hours, and mention how their Domino’s supervisor was in the back reading a newspaper as usual. As well, Domino’s Pizza boxes and counter space was seen several times throughout these videos. Within 24 hours of these video being posted and going viral, the videos had received 250,000 YouTube views. Considering Domino’s Pizza, based on consumer spending, is the world’s leading pizza delivery service, with over 5,000 stores in the United Sates and 3,700 internationally, this was not good. In 2008, over 400 million pizzas were delivered worldwide. This would significantly drop if Domino’s Pizza did not take public action and ensure its existing (and possible new comers) customers that their pizza is fresh and free of contamination. Defining the root of the problem takes some digging into what actually happened. On the surface, shifting the blame to employees seems like the most likely response, which is what Domino’s Pizza had done. These employees do have a sick sense of humor and should not have been allowed to have the opportunity at working at such an establishment. Because of their behavior, it is not Domino’s fault for such actions. While Tim McIntyre was not in fact at this location at the time, he could not have stopped these specific employees from doing such disrespectful behavior, and the organization in turn should not be bashed because of it. In evading responsibility this way, Domino’s Pizza wants its customers to understand that they, as a whole company, represent citizenship with a higher quality product than other pizza delivery companies. The goal for the public relations team in this situation is to keep attitudes positive and behavior consistent. To do so is to prove that the situation has been handled, publicly, restoring their image. However, digging deeper into this problem uncovers other aspects of the cause of these viral videos. This Domino’s Pizza, located in Conover, North Carolina is a franchisee of the Domino’s Pizza establishment. Being such, this Domino’s is given strict regulation of how to run their business, but is given leniency on pricing and hiring employees. This is where the problem begins. Because of this leniency, franchisees may not be held to par of Domino’s Pizza cooperation. Given leniency means a free pass to do what ever they would like. In digging deeper in this case, in seems that Domino’s Pizza cooperation should take a bigger stance in how their franchisees are working. Management was let off easy in this situation. In fact, management (at least not publicly) was not targeted at all. As mentioned in the video, their manager was “sitting in the back reading a newspaper as usual.” As well, the two employees mentioned multiple times of how bored they were and how lazy of employees they had become for working at Domino’s Pizza. Although the Domino’s Pizza cooperation does not directly deal with these employees, it is still their responsibility to train their franchisees to look for appropriate employees and teach appropriate behavior. Why was this store manger locked away in his office for the extended length of time it took to record five videos? Why did the employees have so much free time on their hands? Where were the other employees working, and had not mentioned this behavior to their supervisor? Taking into account that these two employees have a morbid sense of humor, the hiring manager should have sensed this type of behavior. To hold a favorable reputation, Domino’s needs to ensure that it’s workplace holds ethical employees and managers. Domino’s Pizza headquarters needs to actually be a part of every franchisee to ensure the security necessary of running a popular food service. Management needs to be reevaluated. The supervisor at this Domino’s Pizza location clearly did not have control of his/her staff and of what was going on in the store. In deeper analysis, it is how management is run being the major issue. In solving this problem, management needs to be rewritten.
SOLVING THE PROBLEM “My first reaction when I saw it was anger. I was angry because I love this place, I love this brand, I love the franchisees that I work with. And I took it personally… we [the immediate response team] channeled anger into action”, responded Tim McIntyre, who began working for Domino’s Pizza immediately after graduating from college and twenty-five years later becoming a vice president of corporate communications at Domino’s Pizza. Tim McIntyre’s team did took action by first scanning though the corporate past experience, looking for similar situations to find out any strategies to deal with issue, but with the new age of Web 2.0 and Social Media technology growth, McIntyre realized that no protocols nor plants were in place, thus, it was up to them to seize the situation internally and externally that emerged from the YouTube posting. Domino’s VP of corporate communications and his team, which handled all of the company’s public reasons, took action as soon as the email was received from the webmaster of Good As You, they knew that losing the most valuable asset of customers trust from YouTube prank will damaged not only their food industry ethics but also Domino’s brand image. Starting internally McIntyre took actions by notifying the CEO, the President of the company, employees in operations, his supervisor and corporate counsel of the prank video and arising corporate issue. He assured the company that the efforts were being made to locate the franchisee and the employees that were at fault. Following that that day, McIntyre received good news from the two Consumerist readers, that they managed to track the store location and alert the managers by sending the store information to the Domino’s corporate headquarters. After finding the store, VP of communication was working with the store’s owner to terminate the employees and seek legal counsel to see if action could be taken against the employees due to damage to the brand. He asked that offender wrote a statement explaining employees’ actions and apologizing to the company. And so they did react. An email from Kristi Hammond was sent to Domino’s the next morning, apologizing for their actions that coursed negative promotion, that the prank “was very very immature and [she is] sorry for the embarrassment that [they] cause [Domino’s Pizza]” and assuring the company that “no [contaminated] food was send out to any customers”. Even though, Kristi’s apology was lacking sensitive regret it was up to the manager to acknowledged wrong doing, accept the responsibilities and provide assurance that the offense won’t happen again. Timing is critical for management to act upon when the brand externally is under the pressure by the Social Media on the Internet, which causes any information to spread in the matter of time, also called viral effect; therefore, there main goal is to prevent negative connotation on the brand from spreading further and assure their consumers that Domino’s brand is still loyal to the them and their trust is important to their brand. Thus, McIntyre’s team quickly acted in the external environment by sharing updates and messages about the crisis on their corporate website, the message was addressed to “our Valued Costomers” with steps that management took, attached to a sincere apology. They also made direct contact with both The Consumerist and Good As You, the webmasters who made Domino’s the company of the existing YouTube video and identified the employees. He sent a public thank you note to The Consumerist for finding the stores location in Conover, North Carolina and sharing with them of the Kristi Hammond’s email, notifying them that Domino’s will follow up on Kristi’s claim on “no [contaminated] food was sent out to any customers”, and that the store’s owner would terminate the employment of the two offenders. This update to The Consumerist is great communication strategy of immediate Corrective Actions, which uses a Restoration technique that targets one of the channels of viral flow, reassuring the public and immediately restoring the trust by checking if any contaminated food was sent out and firing the two employees, which he received a positive response. A similar email was also sent to Good As You, saying that franchisee fired the two employees, that they would sent a written statement of their actions, and also, Domino’s was seeking a legal advises on brand damages. However, McIntire also wrote that he wished “it hadn’t been posted so prominently on [Good As You] web site… it does hurt the company and the thousands of people we employ in this country whether it’s intended or no.” This response Evades the Responsibility, which shows how Domino’s where shifting the blame on Good As You website and accusing them for posting to the public but not promptly first notifying the company; which Good As You responded: “Hey Tim: Don’t shoot the messenger, buddy!” The next step that McIntyre’s team took was to send out their message to the insulted public, using the same communication channel on the Internet. McIntyre commented to the National Press Club, “We did this in the same forum these people used to do this to us. The credit we’re getting and the comments we’re seeing is that we didn’t hide and we haven’t been ‘corporate’ but responding like real people”. Posting apology video on YouTube with Domino’s President Patrick Dole, who was “sincerely sorry” for “immature acts” of two employees and assuring the viewers that the store was immediately “shutdown and sanitizes”, their “auditors across the state [were making] sure [the stores are] clean”, repeating the statement from the email that was sent to the headquarters from the employee that “no [contaminated] food was send out to any customers”, and the final outcome that the employees were fired. He also recognized and evaded the responsibility by shifting the blame on the franchisee’s hiring decisions, but taking in to the account to evaluate the companies hiring processes. The YouTube apology and a Twitter account, which was created for open-ended opinions to listen the media and better respond in the apology video, did the trick to seize the problem and take the control of negative image from spreading further, which Radui6 Tracking reported and showed dramatic decrease (from 8,166 to 4,365 in one day) on the online buzz. The reaction from the Domino’s executives and public relations team was undoubtedly commendable. They checked internally for the past strategies to see if they ever had the same problem, however discovering that no issues like these were ever raised they had to act immediately by informing the public that consumers trust was important with an apologizing video on the same communication channel. In evaluating the management’s quick actions during the situation, Tim McIntyre acted appropriately in internal meter to get the control of the arising issue. He notified the upper management, identified the store and the offenders, where and by whom the video that was taken, the employees quickly were terminated and asked from them for an apology. Their YouTube response was lacking in acknowledging the wrong doing, because it was not the corporate responsibility but franchises’ strategies. Thus, Domino’s management should re-examine Franchisees’ governance or the overall hiring strategies. Despite this fact, there are alternative reactionary methods that could have been undertaken. In order to better understand the decisions made, one must examine other possibilities. In this age of technology and information, crises such as this one are able to grab the attention of the public in extremely short periods of time, and now more than ever is examining multi-faceted public relations responses a vital piece of the management puzzle. It is also essential to remember that public relations is only one aspect of addressing such issues, and in order to be effective, it must be coupled with a synchronized business response plan. An alternative response that may at first seem poorly assessed and irresponsible would be for the Domino’s corporate team to do nothing. In the world of fast-paced, short-attention span driven media, stories find it difficult to remain relevant to the news consumer for more than a few days or weeks at most. This begs the question that perhaps the flow of the media would blow over this incident, and damage would be minimal in the long run. Were this approach taken however, Domino’s would soon learn (even more so than they did in reality) that the power of social media and viral videos are something that can seldom be ignored. The effects of these potentially exponentially growing new media stories would make the response of simple denial a poor choice for the public relations team of the company. There were too many factors that speak to the authenticity of the videos to prevent the public eye from catching interest. For the same reason, alternative methods of denial would be a poor decision as well, from clarification to effectively questioning the source of the videos as real. The idea of denying the crisis overall is not necessarily a good one, but it would certainly be an alternative solution. There are many other responses to consider, but undoubtedly the best approach is a combination of many different communication strategies. The overall goal of the public relations approach was to repair the brand image, and assure that any market share lost would be regained in a timely fashion. Domino’s could definitely placed more attention on reducing the offensiveness of the situation. One such approach could be through compensation to the local area loyal costumers, in the form of coupons, special deals etc. Another reactionary measure could be to minimize the ordeal, particularly when it had reached the national and international levels. This could be undertaken through the constant reassurance that this was an isolated incident, in a small town in North Carolina. The corporate officials could have placed more emphasis on the afore-mentioned strategy of evading responsibility for the incident. Blame could be shifted onto the franchise owner and local area, minimizing the effect and potentially allowing the company to save some face on a larger scale. The challenges presented by these additional strategies would be minimal. In terms of web strategy, costs are increased, at least in terms of staffing and oversight. Social media structured planning and search engine optimization expertise is something that the company should have invested more focus into, as the curious and scrutinizing public eye was affixed on Domino’s next move. This investment would definitely be worth consideration due to the company’s lack of experience in the matter, and the scale of which the problem had reached. Not a month prior, consulting firms had been hired in order to boost a new marketing campaign for the company. It’s an unfortunate lapse in management and decision making, that just when the corporation seemed to have been taking steps toward a more contemporary marketplace, they are blind-sided by the negative side of the social web. An additional measure Domino’s could have taken would be to play the bolster certain aspects of the company, which had been questionable in the light of the recent incidents. Showcasing the source of the ingredients and service, in both farms and in employee stories could move the brand into a more positive light and begin to repair the damage caused by the incident. In implementing an advertising campaign focused around such things, the web would be an ideal place for it to be focused. Overall, these strategies coupled with the responses utilized in reality by the Domino’s Corporation would have provided for the best possible reaction to the crisis at hand. A multi-faceted approach is typically the best way to go about communicating with the public, especially when the problem reaches the point that these videos had reached an international level news story. In order to execute these additional strategies with those the company had elected to, a great deal of organization is needed. As previously mentioned, the web is an ideal and absolutely necessary resource to implement the short-term policies. The story began and spread like wildfire through the World Wide Web, and in order to remedy the situation in the best possible manner, the response must be targeted in a similar manner. In terms of implementation, a plan must be laid out, and communication networks established before. Although the strategies covered a broad range, they would need to be executed in one swift and organized fashion. Top down management from the PR director would be important, in overseeing that there are no contradictory statements. This was utilized very well in McIntyre’s direct correspondence with both The Consumerist and Good As You. Implementing the alternative plan would need to be handled in a similar fashion by McIntyre and the communication team. The timeline would have to be a quick one, implementing such measures as uploading a response video with the same title as the viral video, in order to redirect the web traffic are key in the short-term response arena. This same methodology should be implemented in the long term, with actions such as consulting technologically relevant resources (SEO, Social Media) could shift the company from a bad situation to being prepared to enter the marketplace rejuvenated and in the platform of web 2.0.
In addressing where each communication strategy should take place, one must determine what in fact the strategy’s goal is. For the minimization efforts, large-scale press releases, to prying national journalists, as well as those overseas should be implemented. On the other side of the picture, the local market needs a different kind of attention, and strategies such as bolstering should be on the forefront of the problem, in addition to the ever-present and visible apologetic messages. The Domino’s company was an unfortunate victim in this scenario, but it is an absolute testament to the constant vigilance required in maintaining the reputation of a worldwide brand in the age of information. The lesson that Domino’s learned through this ordeal should be examined closely not only by companies in the food service sector, but by each and every corporation. There is no denying the power of the Internet and the potentially damaging effects that viral media can have within a number of days. The modern world of public relations requires an extremely principled and capable structure to react in short amounts of time to situations of this manner, and in Domino’s case, this lesson was learned the hard way. Situations are often unavoidable, but this case study is an excellent resource for any and all companies forging on into the world of new media. Eleanor Roosevelt once said “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

REFERENCES
Peeples, A. & Vaughn C. (2010). Domino’s “Special” Delivery: Going Viral Through Social Media (A). University of Notre Dame, Mendoza School of Business. Notre Dame, IN. Retrieved from: https://ilearn.sfsu.edu/file.php/13736/Dominos_Special_Delivery_A.pdf
Peeples, A. & Vaughn C. (2010). Domino’s “Special” Delivery: Going Viral Through Social Media (B). University of Notre Dame, Mendoza School of Business. Notre Dame, IN. Retrieved from: https://ilearn.sfsu.edu/file.php/13736/Dominos_Special_Delivery_B.pdf
Swifttallon.(2009). Domino's President Responds To Prank Video. You Tube. Retrieved April 1, 2011. From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dem6eA7-A2I Dominos Case Study Group. (2011). Public Relations Class notes (MKTG 432). San Francisco State University.