Since the traffic accidents forced Domino’s to abandon its famous guarantee/USP in 1994 i’t’s advertising has been hit and miss.
According to my inside sources inside Domino’s, sometimes their marketing was embarrasingly bad.
They distributed a small handout with a headline about one kind of featured pizza, but included the picture of another one — and a special on another one.
Following the — according to store employees — misguided attempt to bring back the 30 minute guarantee without really doing so, they continued to print silly stuff on the boxes. For a time, that included children’s games. That included characters and markers kids could punch out from the sides of the boxes.
“No customer ever told me their kids played those games,” a driver said. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I think people just threw the boxes away. They do have old grease and cheese inside. And kids today have exciting electronic games to play.”
They couldn’t even come up with original slogans.
When they introduced a “crispy” style crunch, the big slogan was “Crispy, meet Pizza. Pizza, meet Crispy.”
Real mouthwatering and enticing, right?
But it gets better. A little later they introduced an “oreo” style dessert pizza and its slogan was, “Oreo, meet Pizza. Pizza, meet Oreo.”
On the plus side, the “Get the door, it’s Domino’s” commercials seem to have been a success. At least, drivers told me some people liked to shout that out when they came to the door.
And sometimes drivers had to shout it out through an open door when they arrived on a delivery but nobody was present to pay for the food.
And a few reported people like to joke about the older commercial where the driver gives the family’s Cheesy Bread away to a neighborhood child, not realized that kid is not part of the family who ordered the food.
All in all, it makes me glad I’m in direct response rather than mass media image advertising.
Tags: mass marketing