Domino’s Slip-Up Reveals Silver Lining
If the police aren’t called and a human hasn’t been injured, can a promotion that goes terribly wrong, but ultimately emerges as a good thing, be turned into a case study that can be successful for other marketers?
Let’s take the case of Domino’s.
As many of you know, the pizza maker and its agency, dreamed up the idea of a special, limited time promotion last December to give away free medium-size pizzas as the country buzzed about bailouts. The computer system was programmed to accept the word “bailout” in a promotion code box to activate the offer. But the promotion never got the green light and the team moved on to other ideas never deactivating the offer.
On a recent Monday evening, an enterprising, hungry Web surfer came upon the promotion code box and, for some reason, tried the word “bailout.” By the time Domino’s figured out on Tuesday morning what was going on—franchisees called wondering why customers were asking for free pizzas—it had to give away more than 11,000 pizzas.
It turns out through some cyber sleuthing—a theory, mind you—that a single college student in Cincinnati discovered the promotion and notified a friend in Salt Lake City, or vice versa. How did Domino’s come to this conclusion? Stores near college campuses in those cities received the most orders for free pies.
So what would prompt someone to type the word “bailout” into a promotion box in the dark of night? He or she was likely prompted by the current Domino’s TV campaign that plays on bailouts.
Many, at this point, would shake a stern finger at Domino’s and ask: What’s the lesson here? If somebody exploits a flaw in your software shouldn’t there be a safety net? Yes, sure, and Domino’s has now strengthened its safety net.
But, once the marketing department got the promotion shut down and recovered from the shock, the silver lining began to appear. Many of the people who got the free pizza also ordered something else. Thousands more were drawn to Domino’s Web site that had never been there before. Word of the blunder spread like a lighted match tossed into a river of gasoline. Domino’s estimated the exposure at 50 million media impressions, and that doesn’t include radio and the blogosphere, which lit up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
Tim McIntyre, a spokesperson for Domino’s, told me that all the fuss raised awareness of its online ordering capabilities beyond what it ever could image in a single 12-hour time frame.
Domino’s reimbursed the franchisees that had given out the free pizzas for the food costs and applied those costs to the marketing budget. “An unintended marketing expense,” he said.
“We got tangible evidence of the power of viral word-of-mouth, and tangible proof of two words that go well together: free pizza. Those are very popular words,” he said.
Sure, marketers have run campaigns where they hide stuff both online and off, but usually there’s some kind of marketing message that offers a trail of breadcrumbs leading to the prize. But that’s not going to drum up the kind of reaction a lone mismatch between a hungry college student and an errant promo box did.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Knowing Domino’s advertising agency of record, CP+B, I highly doubt this was an accident. CP+B carefully plans brilliant viral marketing campaigns. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the name of authenticity, CPB planned this, pulled it off and didn’t advise the client ahead of time. What is the real investment/cost anyway? The cost for 11,000 pizzas? Big deal, 50 million media impressions are worth far more than 11,000 pizzas! Brilliant.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
11,000 medium pizzas x about $3 = about $33,000 for 50 million impressions a good deal indeed!