Two employees threaten pizza chain’s reputation
After seeing a tweet from Barbara Nixon with a link to a truly disgusting video, I responded with a retweet of the link and a declaration that, after seeing the video, I’ll never eat at Domino’s Pizza again. My tweet was then retweeted by a variety of people who added prefaces like “Over to you Domino’s” and “Domino’s are you paying attention.”
I waited to see if I’d hear from Domino’s and searched to see if the pizza heavyweight had replied to Barbara’s or anybody else’s tweets. Only later did I learn—in a phone conversation with a colleague—that Domino’s had, in fact, responded. Not on Twitter, where people are talking about it, but on the Consumerist blog, which had also been covering the story.
This raises a question corporate communicators should ponder: What is an adequate response to a social-media generated attack on your reputation?
A follow-up to the original Consumerist post included an email from Tim McIntyre, VP of COmmunications at Domino’s, to a Consumerist reader who had alerted McIntyre to the situation. McIntyre included an email he had received from one of the employees involved apologizing and insisting the video was a prank. McIntyre, however, didn’t know whether to believe the employee, and followed up with this:
Our chief of security has spoken to the franchise owner this morning, who was dumbfounded, to say the least. He has told us that he will be terminating their employment today. The “challenge” that comes with the freedom of the internet is that any idiot with a camera and an internet link can do stuff like this - and ruin the reputation of a brand that’s nearly 50 years old, and the reputations of 125,000 hard-working men and women across the nation and in 60 countries around the world.
That’s not a bad response, but remember, it was an email to one individual. So far, as near as I can tell, the publication of this email on Consumerist is the only public acknowledgement of a situation that continues to spiral out of control. I checked Twazzup, the nifty new third-party Twitter search tool, and found a fast-updating stream of tweets pointing to the video (on YouTube, not the Consumerist article), along with links to blogs and other sources referenced in the tweeets.
Domino’s needs to get out in front of this situation.
It would be a mistake to hope this would simply blow over. Already, volunteer sleuths have tracked down the store, an increasingly common activity, as The New York Times reported last week. Left unaddressed, other likely results are former employees starting to discuss what they saw, boycott groups forming on Facebook, and ultimately external media coverage (which, according to Google News, hasn’t happened yet). Already, there’s the likelihood that popular blog posts like those on Consumerist, once they have attracted enough inbound links, will be part of the top Google search results for Domino’s for years to come.
There’s clearly a lesson to be learned from Scott Monty’s handling of the Ford Ranger Station story, in which he replied directly to many of the tweets alerting him to the situation. He also sent several updates via Twitter, asking his followers to retweet the message, ensuring his updates were seen by an expanded audience. The result of this effort was the (accurate) perception that Ford was on top of the situation and taking appropriate steps to resolve it. That situation was resolved in less than a day and never attracted mainstream media coverage.
Twitter isn’t necessarily the only channel for engagement. Domino’s should post a comment to the YouTube video itself, which features over 350 comments as of this writing, along with any other venues where the perception persists that the company isn’t doing anything about this. (By the way, when I first saw the video on YouTube about an hour ago, there were about 200 comments. It had been viewed some 8,000 times; right now it’s up to 14,013 views. That’s the very definition of “spiraling out of control.” I expect the count to skyrocket over the course of the day.)
There’s also a lesson to be learned from McNeil Consumer Healthcare’s handling of the MotrinMoms kerfuffle, with Marketing VP Kathy Widmer apologizing publicly on the Motrin website.
In general, Domino’s should be viewing the situation as a crisis, an unanticipated event that could result in damage to the company’s reputation. With so many people alreading vowing never to eat Domino’s again, there can be little doubt that the this story qualifies under that definition. That means Domino’s needs to address a risk-averse public by owning up to the situation and outlining steps the company is taking to ensure this would never happen again. (It’s far too expensive a solution to expect, but wouldn’t it be cool if Domino’s installed webcams in every kitchen so customers could watch their food being prepared at their local restaurant?)
And Domino’s needs to make sure this message gets out through all the major channels where the story is under discussion. An official statement on its corporate site wouldn’t hurt, especially if the story does migrate into the traditional media.
Finally, the Domino’s story serves as another reminder of the importance of monitoring how you’re being discussed. Such a monitoring effort would surely turn up the Twitter stream, blog posts (more and more are turning up all the time), Digg, and the broad range of other channels. Knowing where the topic is spreading should inform your communication strategy.
Shel—excellent insight into this kerfuffle. I’ll be sure to recommend that my Intro to PR students see this post.
And will I eat at Domino’s again? Definitely yes. The video was gross and nasty, but I look at that as two imbecile employees doing something idiotic rather than a reflection of the whole chain. (Disclosure: I worked at Domino’s for a year in the early 1980s.)
Posted by Barbara Nixon on 04/14 at 10:46 AMShel, great post and you are right on. At least Dominoes was listening, but if you wanted to apologize to a friend, would you talk to him/her directly or would you take out an ad in the local paper apologizing with no guarantee he/she would see it?
Maybe that’s a stretch, but companies need to, as you said, learn from Scott Monty. When people are talking about your brand, listen and engage, preferably where the conversation is taking place.
Like you, I immediately began looking for Dominoe’s reaction and couldn’t find it on Twitter. How am I or anyone else supposed to know to look to the Consumerist? Luckily for Dominoes, some blogs and tweets will point people there. But the better result would be to jump in the social media deep end and start apologizing, telling their side of the story.
After all, I guarantee YouTube (which last I checked was sthe 3rd most trafficked site on the Internet) gets more views/link shares than The Consumerist or most any other blog site for that matter.
Posted by Justin Goldsborough on 04/14 at 10:52 AM@BarbaraNixon For me, the question is, “What kind of people are you hiring?” It’s not quite so easy to write this off as two rogue employees. I naturally wonder where else this is going on and, consequently, what Domino’s is going to do to ensure the food delivered from my local Domino’s hasn’t been treated the way these two did. (Of course, I don’t live within the delivery range of a Domino’s, so personally I have nothing to worry about.)
Posted by Shel Holtz on 04/14 at 11:26 AMAdvertising Age has a bit more depth from Domino’s HQ at http://adage.com/article?article_id=135982.
Dominos spokesman Tim McIntyre “said the company decided not to issue a press release or post a statement online. After all, he said, the company can deal with tens of thousands of impressions, but a strong response from Domino’s would alert more consumers to the embarrassment.”
This is the kind of story that has all the elements to explode into mainstream media, so I suspect that Domino’s is taking action behind the scenes to prepare for that. If I was advising them I’d recommend a rapid internal response to emphasize proper food prep. With salmonella outbreaks happening every week, restaurant employees need to understand that their fun and games really can be deadly.
Posted by Dan Keeney on 04/14 at 01:08 PM@Dan Keeney—Ah, the old “Let’s wait and see if it gets out of hand” approach. That worked in the era of news cycles, not today. When I wrote this post this morning, there was no mainstream media coverage showing up in Google News. Now the AdAge story is there, along with a North Carolina TV station’s news coverage. What’s more, the YouTube video is the THIRD LINK found in a Google search of “Dominos.”
I have no problem with taking action behind the scenes, but the best path is to communicate that that’s what you’re doing. Ongoing contact so those paying attention know you’re on the case is far better at keeping the noise level down than saying nothing while waiting to see if (and that’s a very small “if”) it explodes.
Posted by Shel on 04/14 at 01:36 PM@Dan Keeney While it’s great that Tim and Dominoes responded at all, I couldn’t disgaree more with their logic.
As Shel pointed out, you cannot hide from social media and hope people won’t see this video. Word of mouth is too strong these days.
Agree with the idea of re-emphasizing food safety and maybe even getting some of those efforts on video to share with the YouTube crowd. But to ignore the fact that thousands of people are talking about your company on twitter, YouTube and in the blogosphere just digs a deeper hole for your brand.
Tim/Dominoes needs to drop the shovel and face the music, even if all he/they can say is I’m sorry (which he never said btw) and we’re looking into it. My two cents…
Posted by Justin Goldsborough on 04/15 at 06:25 AMI completely agree with Shel. Dominos should have responded to the video differently. Just posting a statement on the Consumerist blog is not enough, especially in this day and age with social media having such a big influence. It surprises me that Dominos was not already monitoring Twitter in the first place. I think that other companies should look at this situation and learn the power social media has and how companies can use it to communicate with their consumers and spread information.
Posted by Stefani on 04/15 at 07:51 AMIt seems like the most effective Dominos could be, without bringing anymore undo attention to the matter, is to respond in an equal fashion to the video, with a video of their own, responding to the offense, on the same online channels that the offender used.
Posted by Joe A. on 04/16 at 06:28 AMI don’t understand how they thought this might stay contained. It is just the sort of gross, disgusting thing that people will jump all over and distribute to their friends.
We will be discussing this on the Roundtable…which will not have any pizza on it…
Jen
Posted by Jen Zingsheim on 04/16 at 11:14 AMAnd the plot thickens, the video has now been removed because the Domino’s employee that filmed it, Kristy Hammond, has filed a copyright violation. There are a number of videos that have been created about this video and about the people in the video. Of course, the video has been reposted on other accounts, so it isn’t going away.
This has become as much a referendum on how posting stuff on the Internet is a risky business for individuals as it has been a wake-up call for companies.
Posted by Kami Huyse on 04/18 at 10:37 AM