Domino’s pizza has dominated both the United States’ market and the international market in manufacturing pizzas since starting its operations in 1960. It has a vision that targets to absorb brilliant people to assist in achieving the mission of producing and delivering the best pizzas.
The company has chains of restaurants and other international joints that spread across the US and outside the US. Domino’s pizza has its headquarters at Domino Farms Office Park campus in Michigan. Currently, the company ranks second in manufacturing pizzas in the United States. However, in the international front, the extensive network of Domino’s pizza in both corporate and franchise stores makes it the largest in the world.
In 2009, just before the company developed its presence in the social media, two of its employees at the Conover N.C. franchise posted a video in the YouTube. YouTube a website that shares videos that users have uploaded in them. The video showed Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setzer doing disgusting things to a sandwich at the restaurant’s kitchen.
In the video, one employee is seen preparing sandwiches for delivery and in the process, violating key health standards. The employee was placing cheese close to the nose and blowing mucus into the sandwiches. The other employee was providing a narration of the entire process.
Further, they are seen inserting washing sponge that they had used in washing their client’s dishes in their buttocks. They did this without the knowledge of the senior management, and within 48 hours, they had posted the video on YouTube. The video attracted negative comments from over one million viewers within two days. Moreover, the video escalated into other social networking sites like Twitter and Google plus. Specifically, the video attracted over 300,000 comments within 24 hours of its posting.
Domino’s pizza responded by launching a communication strategy to save its positive image that had dominated the market. The company’s loyal customers had taken the first step in informing the company of the video scandal. In taking necessary steps to correct the wrongdoings, Domino’s pizza took the two employees to court where they were charged with a felony.
Also, they were arrested and charged for supplying foods that were not healthy for consumers. Domino’s pizza held that the employees promised not to deliver tainted products. After detecting the scandal, the company fired the two employees and went on to give assurance to its customers that the incident was that of isolation. The company also informed the customers that it had taken the necessary steps to contain and correct the situation.
One of the ways that the company used was set up a Twitter account to inform the entire market of its position on the scandal. Since the two employees included Domino’s pizza website details in the video, the company had to apologize to the website first. The brewing storm was contained through re-tweeting of the company’s responses. Some people wondered why the company took too long to act on the offending video.
The company used the same channel in responding to the customers’ concerns to cool the storm that had already dominated the market. Further, it optimized the two videos in one location so that customers could view them and understand the entire scandal. Even though the company suffered great consequences from the video scandal, it came out clear and intercepted the offending video using proactive options. Notably, Domino’s pizza is still going strong in both the United States and international market four years down the line.