060: Dominos: We’re Sorry Our Pizza Sucks

Welcome to Will It Stick? podcast, where hosts Melissa and Alexis cover creative advertising campaigns, PR stunts, and marketing activations that brands of all shapes and sizes pull, and dive into the research and data to understand if it worked and of course … Will It Stick?

Domino’s started out small, with one store in Michigan in 1960. It was launched near a college campus. Fast forward more than 60 years, and Domino’s has grown to become one of the most recognized and leading pizza brands in the world.

The Monaghan brothers started Dominos together but shortly after one of the brothers quit. Tom continued to truck forward and drive business. So, that first location was near a college campus and they couldn’t afford a big location for dining in. But Tom was super smart and said, no worries we will just have the kids come here for carryout or we will deliver. So, Dominos has been in the delivery business since its inception.

In 2009, Dominos suffered a major blow when a series of five viral videos were uploaded to Youtube showing a male employee at a Domino’s Pizza chain in North Carolina contaminating ingredients with his body while a female narrates that items with those ingredients will go out to customers. Immediately the media went crazy and people were rightfully disgusted and Dominos lost revenue and the brands stock was trading at less than $10 per share! But, CEO Patrick Doyle had a plan to turn it around.