Domino’s Pizza goes negative on itself

There’s an interesting story running in Slate this week about a new Domino’s Pizza campaign, in which Domino’s repeats its own customers’ negative feedback in ads about its new and improved recipe.

At the centre of the campaign is a four-minute documentary-style piece on YouTube, from which 30-second commercials have been made. It opens with negative tweets about Domino’s Pizza from real Twitter users, and goes on to show focus groups in which real tasters (i.e., actual focus group participants, not actors) offer bad review after bad review. The piece then covers how seriously Domino’s takes customer feedback, the process it went through to address its customers' complaints, and how its new product is better than ever.



If you look at the website for the new campaign, you’ll find this video, as well as a round-up of other coverage, including what looks like a live Twitter stream of tweets about Domino’s; it features tweets using the hashtags #newpizza and #dominos, as well as those including the profile @dominos and, as I wrote this blog entry, included both positive and negative reviews.

Multiple-choice question:

A company that’s willing to draw attention to its critics’ opinions must be:

a. Crazy
b. Not business savvy
c. Confident that it has fixed the problems

My answer is “c” – but if Domino’s isn’t confident the market is going to love this new pizza (or, at least, see it as an improvement), my answer changes to “a” and “b”. Domino’s’ customers had better think its pizza is markedly better than it was before, or the company will have a serious credibility gap to address.

Will this campaign get attention? Undoubtedly – and, as Beth Stevenson points out in the Slate article, likely more than a conventional “new and improved” campaign would have.

Is this approach unprecedented? No; as Paul Farhi points out in The Washington Post, other companies from GM to United Airlines and JetBlue – even this year’s Chicago Bears – have apologized for their own shortcomings in advertising.

Will it work? Only time – and how much better the pizza actually is – will tell.

Carnival Cruise Lines: Advertising that improves your PR stunt's image

Media Credit: Oliva Garrity. Source: www.thetriangle.org

I came across a video showing a Carnival Cruise Lines publicity stunt gone awry (sort of) as my first-year PR students were researching pseudo-events this past week.

As this article in The Daily Pennsylvanian describes, Carnival staged a major publicity stunt in Philadelphia in November 2008, in which it built – and invited the public to come and enjoy – the world’s largest piñata.

It sounds like a great idea. Carnival markets itself to a young, fun-loving audience with the tagline “Fun For All. All For Fun.” and many of its most popular cruises include ports of call in Mexico. The world’s largest piñata would seem to be a great fit.

According to another article, Carnival never planned to actually bash the giant piñata with a wrecking ball on-site; rather, the plan was for the wrecking ball to come close, and for trap doors to open via remote control, spilling eight thousand pounds of candy into the square for the public to collect (with cameras rolling).

Imagine the planning that went into this event. Between the actual event plan, the building and filling of the piñata, the procurement of the wrecking ball, the advertising and media relations, dealing with the city for permits, security, first aid, and all the required staging, it would have been a huge undertaking.

But in the end, the moment the crowd was waiting for – the release of the candy – didn’t happen. Why? Because their publicity for this publicity event was too successful… and they didn’t have a plan B.



So why does the title of this post talk about advertising?

Because of this Carnival ad, which I also found on YouTube.

I don't know whether this is done with CGI or whether they edited footage of the event together with footage of a later, smaller, piñata opening; but either way, audiences nation-wide and beyond watching this commercial would have had the impression that the event had gone off without a hitch.

Does it matter?

You tell me.

Either way, Carnival did legitimately earn its Guinness World Record for the world's largest piñata; it'll be able to leverage that distinction for publicity purposes (including the ad, above) until its record is broken by some other publicity-hunter.

Good publicity stunts are good business

When you tell people you work in PR, some people hear C.J. Cregg, the brilliant, principled White House spokeswoman from The West Wing, and others hear Samantha Jones, the flashy and promiscuous publicist from Sex and the City.

The fact is, PR is home to each of those – and more, both between the two and further along the spectrum on each side. There are people calling themselves PR people who do nothing but connect celebrities with nightclubs and restaurants at which to make mutually-beneficial appearances, and there are those who advise CEOs and heads of state.

Bread-and-butter, thy name is publicity.

Many PR pros, whether their clients are wanting customers for products, votes for candidates, donations for charities or support for causes, spend a lot of their time working to generate publicity. As they undertake their major PR campaign of the semester, Red River College’s first-year Creative Communications students are blogging about publicity stunts this week (you can check them out on the CreComm Blog Network under “Class of 2011”).

As you’ll see from the range of stunts or “pseudo-events” they examine, the sky’s the limit if you’re creative and you understand what gets people’s attention. A good publicity stunt gets people talking about your brand, and creates news for your client where none existed before.

Case in point: Richard Branson and Canadian wireless number portability

In 2007, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (“CRTC”) changed the rules for wireless carriers in Canada, making it possible for cell phone customers to take their phone numbers with them when they left one wireless company for another. (Before this decision, if you changed cell phone providers you had to get a new number – a deterrent to switching providers.)

Richard Branson, the founder and chief executive of the Virgin Group (and no stranger to the media spotlight), undertook a publicity stunt in downtown Toronto in which he rappelled to the street from a “jail cell” suspended 80 feet in the air, and “rescued” some Canadian cell phone customers who were “imprisoned” by their current suppliers.

It worked – Branson’s stunt caught media attention (after all, you don’t see many corporate executives doing things like this), and Virgin dominated media stories about the number portability decision.

Would the number portability decision have been news without Branson’s stunt? Of course. But would the media stories about it have singled out Virgin Wireless, among the other cell phone competitors in the market? Maybe, maybe not – but most certainly not to the degree they did.

With this publicity stunt, Virgin Wireless got itself featured in media stories about how Canadian wireless customers were now going to have an easier time switching to different suppliers – like Virgin Wireless.

Smart business – and great PR.

My blogroll's new year's diet

There's lots of talk of new year's resolutions these days. I have a number of them; one of them is to blog more in 2010.

I've also decided to put my blogroll on a diet: I'm removing links that haven't been updated in the last, let's say, quarter; I've also created a new online space to play host to all of Red River College's Creative Communications student blogs, rather than linking to each of them (over 100, at this point) from my own blog.

You'll see the link at the top of the right-hand column; it's called "CreComm Blog Network." There, you'll find links to CreComm student, instructor, and (eventually) grad blogs.

For a quick scan of how CreComms see the world, I'd encourage you to visit the CreComm Blog Network regularly; and add it to your own blogroll, if you have one!

I'm sorry

I ran across a couple of stories online this week that got me thinking about apologies. Not the kind of apologies we share with one another every day, for accidentally bumping into someone or forgetting to return a call, but the kind that are called for when we’ve really messed up.

I’ve blogged before about how important it is for people/companies who’ve done wrong to come out right away and admit to their mistakes – and our old friend Tiger has been doing a fair job of driving (har, har!) that lesson home in recent weeks. But to come out and admit you’ve done something wrong isn’t always enough; especially when someone has been hurt by your mistake, you also need to apologize.

Head over to YouTube and you’ll find apologies galore: from R&B stars alleged to have abused their girlfriends, to media outlets caught misleading their audiences, to governments, trying to acknowledge and atone for the sins of their predecessors. And while we’re on the topic of big-ticket apologies (and sins), we have to mention the Catholic Church’s 1992 apology to astronomer Galileo, for having condemned him for his blasphemy that the Earth revolved around the sun; it may have been 359 years too late, but at least it finally came.

Would you hire a PR guy to defend you in court?

In his public apology for his treatment of girlfriend Rihanna, Chris Brown said he had wanted to apologize sooner, but had been advised against it by his lawyer. In the eyes of the law, an apology can been seen as an admission of guilt; and so lawyers, whose job it is to keep us out of jail, will often advise silence in the face of our own wrongdoing.

Sometimes, it's sad to say, that may be the best way to go; unless you’re willing to go to jail for your transgression, you might be better-served by remaining silent, and taking the scorn of the world (or your own audiences, at least) in exchange for your freedom.

But there are times when lawyers’ advice to remain silent can cost their client more than the settlement they’ll eventually be ordered to pay. Think of it this way: if your apology engenders customer goodwill, the business you’ll be able to continue doing after the crisis could be worth far more than a few million paid in damages and settlements. If your refusal to apologize costs you all your customers, you may save a few million in damages, but your business won't last long.

Now, that may sound cold and calculating, but the fact is that companies (especially publicly-traded ones) have to do what's best for their owners' investment. It just so happens that when it comes to apologies, oftentimes what's morally right and what's "right for the business" are one and the same.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail during its listeriosis crisis in 2008, Maple Leaf Foods’ CEO Michael McCain said “Going through the crisis there are two advisors I’ve paid no attention to. The first are the lawyers, and the second are the accountants.” McCain, as PR and business opinion leaders have attested ever since, handled his company’s response to the crisis almost flawlessly; the approach was anchored by a timely, public, multi-media apology.



As a result of its quick, sincere and customer-focused response (involving far more than the apology, it must be said), Maple Leaf's customer confidence ratings rebounded quickly – a fact which I'm sure relieved its lawyers and accountants.

People can forgive imperfection. They’re less able to forgive arrogance.

If you have anyone in your life who refuses to apologize, even when they clearly know they’re in the wrong, you know it’s infuriating. And it’s no different in a relationship between a client and a business than between two people. If you do something wrong, you need to acknowledge that it was wrong, and apologize for having hurt whomever you hurt. It might’nt fix the problem, but it can help.

There’s a great example of exactly this on Steve Farnsworth’s Digital Marketing Mercenary blog this week: “Searskilledmydog.com: The Anatomy of a Social Media Nightmare Averted – Case Study.” It’s a great read, and shows exactly how an apology can get you back on the road to a healthy relationship.

They're not going to run out of angles...

I've been good about restraining myself on the whole Tiger Woods debacle; frankly, over the last couple of weeks, you could have been blogging day and night on the PR aspects alone, as new allegation followed new revelation over and over again.

There have been thousands of voices by now, I'm sure, singing the same tune: Tiger Woods should have just admitted to whatever he had to admit to, so there'd be nothing left for the media to discover, and then gone away and hid for a while until some other celebrity did something shocking and/or stupid to distract us.

More angles

But Tiger didn't listen, and two weeks later, we're still hearing about it. Every day or two there has been another addition to what is now a "string" of alleged mistresses; in the absence of Tiger's own statement, those women become a focus for the media, who can't resist the opportunity to keep feeding the public appetite for this scandal.

So, we hear about who's claiming an affair with him and who's not. We hear analysis of the state of the Woods' marriage and children. We hear conjecture about children conceived as a result of Woods' affairs. We hear about who reportedly hired which powerful celebrity attorney. We hear about mistresses' claims of having taken drugs while with him.

As they say, the media abhors a vacuum: if the story has the public's interest and you refuse to talk, they'll fill in the blanks. Not responding doesn't mean there won't be any stories -- it just means there won't be any stories reflecting your position.

And now, a new angle. Oh, Tiger.

I caught the national Headline News version of this story on TV this morning, which is what prompted me to write this post.

We've now moved past the salacious affair details (even if only until the next mistress is revealed), the marriage breakup conjecture (even if only until his wife is spotted meeting with an attorney), and the corporate sponsors' positions (they can say they're sticking with him all they want, but just watch: eventually, money has to talk...), and we've now moved on to:

Tiger Woods' affairs have prevented little children from going to Disney World.

Yes, you read that right.



This story won't be going away any time soon... unless Tiger does something about it. And even then, it's become so huge that it'll take some time.

Here's a good article on what Tiger should consider doing from here, from ESPN.com; thanks to Jarrett Moffatt for pointing it out to me.

"Media training? Nah, I'll just wing it."

As most PR people, most broadcast journalists, and all our students in Creative Communications know, it takes hard work to look natural in front of a camera (for most people, at least).

On camera, every little tic appears exaggerated. Every hesitation or stumble seems amplified. A frustrated or embarrassed facial expression can overtake any message you're imparting verbally.

And yet... PR people debate with their clients and executives every day, in offices around the world, about the need to practice before going on camera for a media interview. Executives tend to be confident people; but even the greatest of confidence isn't a substitute for some basic techniques that can help you come across well on camera.

"I'll just go on and be myself."

Here is an example of a fellow who may well have felt he could just go on camera, be himself, and win over FOX News viewers. I'd be willing to bet that Jon Christensen, founder of slashgamer.com, uses services like Skype to have videoconference-style conversations online all the time -- and figured that doing an on-camera interview would feel much the same. (His interview begins around the 0:48 mark.)



If that was the case, I'd also be willing to bet he feels differently now.

Practice makes... better

Being on camera can be terrifying the first time. Even if you feel confident, and you know your material like the back of your hand, something can happen when that light goes on that can strike you dumb on the spot.

Professional media training, delivered by a media relations expert, can help. It helps you understand the media's needs so you can better-prepare your messages, making them more likely to be used; it can also help you get more comfortable -- and be more effective -- delivering those messages on camera.

But even if there isn't time to bring in expert training, practice makes better. Have a colleague do mock interviews with you, so you can practice your responses. If you can, use a video camera or even the webcam built into your computer to look at your own body language, so you can identify anything you need to change before you -- and, potentially, millions of others -- see it on the news.



Thanks Dustin for the tip!