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« Thursday « April 16, 2009
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You got 3 minutes... to destroy your brand
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A brand is a promise. Since its founding in 1960, the essential tenet of Domino's Pizza's promise was that they could deliver you a pizza faster than any joint in town (I'll return to this notion of speed in just a moment). Their trademarked slogan is: "You got 30 minutes!" If your pizza didn't arrive at your door within thirty minutes of the time you placed your order, you got to eat pizza for free. Domino's is the self proclaimed world leader in pizza delivery - not pizza - pizza delivery.
This week, in the space of about 3 minutes - this is the notion of speed bit - a pair of renegade Domino's employees did more damage to the brand than possibly anything it has experienced in nearly 50 years of existence. What did they do? They videotaped themselves making sandwiches for speedy delivery while one of the employees marinated slices of cheese and meat with lovely gobs of snot from his nose and covered the food with farts, just to be safe. And to make matters worse, and ignite an online PR nightmare, they uploaded their video to YouTube. And that's when the fun really began. After seeing this video - which has since been pulled from YouTube - it would make any potential customer question whether or not they'd want to order food from this establishment ever again. But then, Domino's was about pizza delivery, not necessarily pizza. You can read more about the situation here, and here, and here.
The two employees have been fired, and now face felony charges; delivering food tainted with nasal mucous is a health offense: a terrible blow to a food company. The Domino's corporation has issued all sorts of apologies, including a video on YouTube, which you can view here.
The lesson for brands, in this new world of social media, is: your brand promise is only as good as your lowliest employee. So treat all of them with care, because they are your brand. This brand promise we talk about is filled with nothing but hot air if only the CEO and the marketing team spouts the taglines and discuss the attributes and associated essences. If your lowliest employee, sitting in the back room, barely scraping by on minimum wage, doesn't buy into what the brand is all about, then you have a potential time-bomb on your hands. And now, even that lowliest employee has the ability to show the world what you're really about with the flick of a cameraphone and the click of an 'upload video' link on the World Wide Web. Truly engaged employees would realize that at the core of Domino's brand promise, beyond the 30 minute guarantee, is this assumption that the food is fresh and healthful, not tainted with boogers and intestinal gas.
Branding begins within the company. It's critically important that the people in charge get this part right, that they believe it and sell it to the rank-and-file every day. Don't live the brand, make the brand live: put some energy and resources into building rock-solid internal cultures, and maybe, don't cut corners in hiring practices either. Continuously engaging employees with the brand, its meaning, its values, its goals, will empower the people who work for the company, yeah, I used the e-word, but if the employees truly understand and buy into what the brand is all about, it will help each one of them see how their efforts contribute to the brand's growth.
We like to say that receptionists, janitors, salespeople, delivery guys, and CEOs are all brand managers. Companies that don't give every employee a stake in being a contributor to and a guardian of the brand could end up with a big mess, like Domino's has on its hands, and sliced salami, right now. They certainly can recover from this, but unlike their slogan, this problem is going to take a lot longer than 30 minutes to fix. So for other companies, how about some preventative maintenance, like investing an internal brand engagement program that has teeth and staying power? The money and resources you spend on brand engagement today could save your reputation and hedge your market share tomorrow.
I think I'll skip the takeout food for now. Looks like a mac-and-cheese night at home.... nom, nom, nom!
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