By Anthony Lucido
October 14, 2020
Summary:
On Sunday, April 12, 2009, two Domino’s Pizza employees, Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setzer, recorded several prank videos involving food tampering. The videos included Setzer putting cheese up his nose, wiping his butt with a sponge, and farting on salami, whilst Hammonds recorded and laughed. The videos were posted to YouTube Monday the next day and had spread to other sites, such as the Consumerist and Good As You, within a couple of hours.
On Tuesday Domino’s officials were notified and got to work to contain the mess. They worked with users to identify where the videos were recorded, they worked with websites to take down the videos, and they created the Twitter account @dpzinfo to respond to customers’ concerns. The following day, Domino’s created a YouTube video with their VP of Communications, Tim McIntyre, and released a statement on their website in hopes to contain the event. Both Hammonds and Setzer were later arrested and charged.
Despite Domino’s efforts to contain the event, the story spread to other news publications, such as the Associated Press, the New York Times, BBC News, and NBC. The videos were also viewed over a million times, leaving Domino’s image, trust, and ratings ruined.
Issue:
The issue in this case was Hammond’s and Setzer’s prank videos and their food tampering. Starting with the latter, food tampering is a serious crime worldwide. Food safety came to rise due to the 1982 Tylenol murders, where seven people died after taking Tylenol contaminated with cyanide. There are other instances, such as the 2003 Aquabomber in Italy who contaminated water bottles with bleach and acetone, or with the much more recent case in 2019 of a woman licking Blue Bell ice cream and putting it back. Despite being harmless pranks, tampering with food can kill people, thus all instances need to be treated seriously.
With the former, the prank videos were an issue regarding Domino’s image and trust with their customers. In only two days Domino’s review and ratings plummeted drastically thanks to the event. Their trust and image were tarnished, discussion was negative, and more importantly, they were losing profit.
Response:
In response to the videos, Domino’s Pizza was quick to work on its crisis management. On day two, Tuesday, April 13, McIntyre spent the morning verifying the details of the videos, finding out if the contaminated food was served to customers, and contacted the police and health departments. The Domino’s communication team provided regular briefings to leadership and posted updates to the Consumerist discussion threads. McIntyre also shared an apologetic e-mail from Hammond to the Consumerist website. By the end of the day, around 250,000 people had watched the video and discussion regarding the event began popping up on Twitter.
On day three, Wednesday, April 14, Domino’s temporarily activated the Twitter account @dpzinfo to respond to customers about the videos. The videos were removed from YouTube which garnered a total of 350,000 views, however, the videos were still on other websites. McIntyre shared another e-mail to the Consumerist website, this time from Domino’s franchise owner and Domino’s chief of security condoning the incident. Domino’s president, Patrick Doyle, returned from vacation early and released a video statement to YouTube followed by a news release. Finally, McIntyre’s team came up with talking points and shared it with managers so they may be able to answer questions and they also allowed managers to express their own thoughts and feelings about the incident.
Analysis:
Despite not containing the incident fully, Domino’s did an overall good job with their response. ✔ They were quick to act. It was only day two when they were notified of the videos, and in the same day, they took action by verifying the detail, working with police and health departments, and providing updates both internally and externally. Additionally, this started on Easter Sunday when many of the higher-ups were on vacation. Domino’s president Doyle was quick to return from vacation early, so they could work on this. Most of the time it is better to work quickly so the company can be in control of the crisis. In Domino’s case, they were somewhat able to control and contain the crisis due to their swiftness but failed due to other reasons.
✔ They were transparent. Again, on day two they contacted and worked with the police and health departments. Throughout the next few days Domino’s would give updates on the Consumerist website, created the @dpzinfo Twitter account to answer questions and concerns, they shared e-mails, they’ve released a statement to their website and a video statement onto YouTube, and more importantly they owned up and acknowledged the event. If there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s that transparency builds better trust and relationships with customers than if you were to sweep the problem under the rug. It’s also good as the company is being proactive instead of reactive by being able to better control the narrative. In Domino’s case, they made themselves out to be a victim in this incident.
✔ They had unity. This part was briefly mentioned in the book, but I thought McIntyre’s team creating talking points for managers to use was great. Domino’s has over 17,000 restaurants worldwide, with 6,000 of them in the U.S. alone. As you can imagine it can be difficult to manage restaurants in so many locations. I find it similar to the American colonies where each state was doing their own thing, had their own laws, and had their own currencies. Things were confusing. It was only when the federal government was created where the standard was set across all states, making it easier to communicate and work with each other. Domino’s could certainly have had only worked with locations in North Carolina, but instead provided managers from all locations. Having a central and unifying voice provide guidance is important when being so spread out. One message and no confusion.
✗ They failed by trying to sweep it under the rug. Even though Domino’s was transparent about the incident, they still tried to sweep it under the rug. They were really only focusing on social media (Consumerist website, Twitter, YouTube) hoping to contain the incident. This backfired on them by not taking control of the larger news outlets. Businesses can’t hope for the best, instead they need to be checking all their tracks and be prepared.
✗ They failed by focusing on social media. The internet was still developing itself during this time, becoming more widespread and available around 2008. As such, companies were still trying to explore how to use the internet and social media properly. When using new tools and mediums there should be a balance of exploring new innovations whilst still having the safety of old tools. Domino’s made a bad call on spending their efforts only on social media. For instance, their video statement posted on YouTube only had 66,000 views versus the 1 million views from the prank videos. They thought they’d only have to talk to one platform, but it didn’t work and they ended up paying the consequences for it.
Similar Case – 1982 Tylenol Murders:
When talking about food tampering there is always one case you should turn to, and that’s the 1982 Tylenol Murders, the case which changed food safety. On September of 1982, three people in Chicago died after taking Tylenol laced with cyanide. By October of 1982, these cyanide contaminated Tylenol claimed seven lives. According to Jennifer Latson, a journalist for Time magazine, it was hypothesized this was either the work of a killer or a disgruntled Tylenol employee, but ultimately it was never found who was responsible. The following year of the incident, the U.S. Congress passed the “Tylenol bill” which made it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products.
In response to the incident, the parent company, Johnson & Johnson, made the difficult choice of recalling over 31 million Tylenol capsules. Additionally, Johnson & Johnson created a hotline for customers to call, they communicated to the public to not use Tylenol, they worked with law enforcement, and they put out a reward for any information which could lead to the persons responsible for the murders. According to Dr. Howard Markel, a medical writer for PBS News Hour, Tylenol had possessed over 35% of the pain relief market which ended up plummeting to 8% after the incident, losing millions for the company.
However, thanks to Johnson & Johnson’s transparency, communication, and swift action, they were able to regain their position in the pain relief market within only a few years and continues to be one of the most popular over the counter pain relievers to this day.
Further Discussion:
The Tylenol case set the precedent for food safety and also shows how working quickly and being transparent can help companies regain the trust of their consumers because of it. As a consumer myself it really is difficult to trust companies or even YouTubers when they aren’t transparent. There was one YouTuber I followed regularly who put a gambling ad in his video which garnered controversy from the community. He came out saying he needed the money to support his new family. If he had said that earlier I would most likely have supported them. When I watch other smaller YouTubers I’m glad they have a sponsored ad, because they’re genuine and transparent about it.
Domino’s has also done more, such as the following year in 2010 where they released their YouTube video “Domino’s® Pizza Turnaround.” According to Cynthia Than, an economics blogger for Inc., Domino’s “admitted their pizza tastes like cardboard” and announced in the video they are improving their pizza recipe based on the feedback they received. The video is their most watched video sitting almost at 2 million views, with a majority of positive comments.
Conclusion:
Overall, Domino’s response to the crisis was good but failed due to focusing on their efforts on social media which was just emerging, and by trying to sweep the incident under the rug instead of trying to contain the larger news outlets. If there was anything they should have done differently, it should have been contacting larger news outlets and controlling the narrative. This case shows how speed and transparency can help a company rebuild after a crisis, but also shows you should be cautious with new and emerging technologies, don’t sweep things under the rug, and to cover your tracks.
References:
Craig, William. “10 Things Transparency Can Do For Your Company” Forbes, Forbes, 16 Oct. 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamcraig/2018/10/16/10-things-transparency-can-do-for-your-company/#431a5ec225d0
Kelso, Alicia. “How Domino’s Plans To Continue Dominating The Pizza Market” Forbes, Forbes, 22 Jan. 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciakelso/2019/01/22/how-dominos-plans-to-gain-even-more-market-share/#385a89435132
Latson, Jennifer. “How Poisoned Tylenol Became a Crisis-Management Teaching Model” Time, Time, 29 Sept. 2014, https://time.com/3423136/tylenol-deaths-1982/
Markel, Howard. “How the Tylenol murders of 1982 changed the way we consume medication” PBS News Hour, PBS, 29 Sept. 2014, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/tylenol-murders-1982
Than, Cynthia. “Domino’s Admitted Their Pizza Tastes Like Cardboard And Won Back Our Trust” Inc.com, Inc.com, 31 March 2017, https://www.inc.com/cynthia-than/dominos
-admitted-their-pizza-tastes-like-cardboard-and-won-back-our-trust.htmlYadgir, Danny. “Crisis Case Study: Domino’s Pizza” Medium.com, Medium.com, 12 April 2019, https://medium.com/@dannyyadgir/crisis-case-study-dominos-pizza-48f284794632
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