Domino’s Pizza Case Study - reputation management online

Domino’s Pizza Crisis 2009 On Sunday the 12th of April 2009, two Domino’s employees from a branch in North Carolina upload a film on YouTube The footage is filmed while they are at work, showing disturbing images of themselves violating health codes with unsanitary actions, whilst preparing food e.g. putting cheese up his nose before putting it into sandwich etc. Above: An image of the footage that was available from YouTube before the video was removed

Domino’s online crisis The video becomes a viral sensation with more than a million hits on YouTube 3 days after it was uploaded (source NYTIMES.COM) Hoax has ripple effect in social media bleeding into conversations in twitter, other social media forums and mainstream media 65% of respondents who had visited Dominos Pizza say they would not visit Dominos Pizza after seeing video (source Wall Street Journal, HCD research, 2009) The two employees say it was only meant to be a prank - but the video had a ripple effect in social media bleeding into twitter and other social media forums Consumer perceptions shifted from positive to negative (source NYTIMES.COM)

Timeline of Dominos response Date Event April 12, 2009 Video posted to YouTube. Video reaches 29,000 views within hours of posting. April 13, 2009 Domino’s is alerted to video by the Consumerist.com (Monday morning) Domino’s identifies location of store where the video was filmed. (Monday Evening) April 14, 2009 Hammonds and Setzer (employees) fired by Domino’s Health department and local police contacted by Domino’s Twitter traffic becomes noticeable Between Tuesday and Wednesday, the video jumps from 29,000 views to 700,000 April 15, 2009 Video surpasses 1 million views. Video is removed from YouTube by Hammonds. Hammonds and Setzer face felony charges for distributing prohibited foods and report to Conover Police. The hoax is found in 5 of the top 12 search results presented by Google to users. Twitter account is created by Domino’s Domino’s CEO (Patrick Doyle) responds in a YouTube video. Domino’s video response has 330,000 views when first press conference is held. April 17, 2009 Wikipedia entry for Domino’s was found to contain information about the hoax posted by an unofficial individual. April 20, 2009 A copy of the original video posted by Hammonds has 345,000 views. The video remains accessible on the Internet in its entirety. The second is CEO Patrick Doyle responds in a video – where he apologises for the incident In the video, he says the store where the videos were shot has been closed and sanitized, and that the company will be conducting a review of hiring practices “to make sure that people like this don’t make it into our stores. This symbolically distances the company from the incident – claiming it is as being an isolated episode and blaming the two employees What’s also rather significant here is that this is the first time a major corporation uses a CEO addresses a crisis directly through social media Source: management communication quarterly (SAGE) – 4th December 2011

Why didn’t Domino’s respond faster? ”Two things we didn’t anticipate. The first thing we didn’t anticipate was the pass-along value, or the pass-along nature of this particular video, because there was a lot of “Man, you ought to see this going on.” And the sheer explosion of interest from the traditional media.” Tim McIntyre, Vice President, Communications, Dominos Pizza They didn’t want to cause more attention to the video – not realising the damage it was causing -

A hoax is a threat A false claim can become a real threat Even though the company knew the claim was false, the public perceived it as being real The video was plausible Imagine your nightmare scenarios Avoid a meteor crisis

Do Domino’s deliver during crisis? What Dominos Pizza did wrong Delayed reaction – alert was heard late - Silent when answers were needed Reacted after they were contacted by consumer affairs blog site Lack of strategy for digital crisis management Fault or lack of online surveillance Lack of social media presence Lack of employee policy on social media use and communication Lack of overview on main online influencers What Dominos Pizza did right Response through traditional media and social media CEO video response on YouTube targeted core audience Changed discourse to ’how companies should deal with hoax crisis’ in mainstream media Created a twitter account to engage in dialogue with consumers and respond to negative comments Initially their first response was slow but by using the video message with the CEO – this was at the time rather revolutionary for a major corporation that wasn’t in the IT segment. As it had never been done before and was percieved by others as being rather risky There’s a noticeable gap in lack of online monitoring But they have since created a twitter account where they could engage in queries and critic But they end up communicating through Youtube and twitter – same channels as crisis is playing out

PRventive Act fast Not enough to proactively use internet as a communication platform Need to use your eyes and ears and listen to all the conversations – not only the ones which you are engaged in According to Shel Holtz - It is not enough to proactively use the Internet as a component of your coordinated communication efforts. You need to monitor activity initiated by others that could have an impact on your company, your markets, or your ability to do business. It is important to listen to all the conversations, not only those in which you are engaged.