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Domino's Disaster Recovery
While things looked bleak initially, Domino's social media PR efforts ultimately paid off, reversing the negative effects of the scandal and reinvigorating the brand and its sales. The rehabilitation of Domino's image via social media has become one of the most closely studied cases by marketers and marketing analysts.
One of the most intensive studies of the Domino's case was performed by Premier Social Media, which wrote, "Social Media tends to have a tsunami effect on people, companies, and celebrities. The purpose of this case study is to take a closer look at the post-tsunami damage to, and potential positive outcomes for Domino's Pizza, one of the companies most recently affected by a Social Media scandal."
In studying the demographic profile of who was talking about Domino's online, the study found that the posters were mostly younger males, ranging in age from 18 to 35. This demographic, said AnaRC, the author of the study, is very predictable because "pizza is a lot more popular among young men than it is among women."
Using data and graphs generated by a tool made by Techrigy for monitoring social media, the report showed that "the tone of the traffic was 65% Neutral, followed by very positive (17% ) and positive (9.5%)." AnaRC said she found this interesting, "as most of the comments are remembered as being negative, yet the report only shows 2% of the traffic had a negative tone and 6% of the traffic had very negative tone."
Supporting the conclusion that most people did not blame Domino's is a survey by ExpoTV.com in which it asked its members to share their thoughts on the Domino's crisis. According to the responses, noted ExpoTV , "It looks like most people agree that Domino's is not to blame. Members in general also 'praised Domino's response.'"
As AnaRC points out, Domino's share value had been steadily dropping for two years before the scandal, since April 2007. After Domino's launched its social media campaign in response to the scandal, its share value rose to the highest number in the last 6 months.
Most analysts credit Domino's with responding well to the crisis, albeit the prevailing feeling is that the company hesitated too long. "There are a few aspects to take into consideration here," says AnaRC. "The first one is that Domino's Pizza responded to the 'scandal' with the right tools. Yes it was kind of late and weak, but they are giving it a try and the Social Mediasphere appreciated their effort."
PR firm 77 Agency was among those who thought Domino's responded quickly enough and handled the situation well: "Domino's was quick in responding to this mess. They immediately fired back by creating their very own Twitter account (dpzinfo) to promote positive coverage, interact with customers, tweet back and more importantly, THANK THEM for their support."
Similarly, said Computerweekly.com blogger James Garner, "A good start to recovery, I would say. This is a great example of why it is so important for businesses to understand social media and Twitter."
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