Diving deep in shallow water.

Let's get back to Domino's, shall we?

Their latest spot begins inside a focus group, presumably a real group, that also ends up being the site of a real dairy farm - a farm whose cows produce the milk that makes the cheese that ends up on their pizza.

Catch all that?

Here's a look:


If you haven't been following my blog, do a search on Domino's and you'll see I've had plenty of good things to say about Domino's rebranding effort. More recently, however, they took a sharp left turn. The latest spot demonstrates more scattered thinking and isn't likely to do them much good.

First, I'm curious when this focus group took place. Curious because the respondent remarks about the cheese, stating she doesn't believe it's "real cheese." With all the money they've thrown at this campaign, one can only hope that by now she doesn't still feel the same.

My larger issue is this: the fundamental issue (I thought) was that people didn't think Domino's pizza TASTES good. The brilliance reflected in the earliest batch of spots was just that - the focus on TASTE.

Domino's CEO came out and revealed the alleged focus group learning; he committed to fixing the TASTE problem. He told us his culinary team reengineered the recipes. He enticed people to give Domino's pizza another try, promising we'd all TASTE the difference and love it.

More recently, they've gotten into ameteur photography contests and other antics that seemed to detract from the underlying taste conversation, and now gone a step further, talking about cows.

Do I think there's something to be gained by showing the origin of ingredients? Perhaps, but not for a fast food pizza brand, at least, not yet.

There's some serious strategy muddling at work here. What food tastes like and where its ingredients are sourced are two different things. Yes, they can overlap, but people who appreciate this type of nuance aren't eating Domino's pizza and if they are, they're throwing caution to the wind.

My message to Domino's is this - find those strategic guardrails and please get back on track. Explore some new topping combinations. Find some more pizza holdouts and prove to America you can win them over with better recipes.

The water is getting deep; it's time to get back to the shallow end.

OFF STRATEGY.

Step 1: Admitting you have a problem

Seems this logic applies to advertising too.

At least, Domino's thought so. And now they're reaping the rewards.

Domino's latest effort had its fair share of critics (many ill informed about this category, but nevertheless..) I can proudly proclaim I was not among them. No Monday morning quarterbacking here; I called this one a winner from the jump.

Sales were in the toilet; where else to go but up?

Off they went to focus groups. But the difference is they LISTENED rather than rattle off predictable qualitative research excuses like "how can we listen to 8 people x 3 groups x 2 cities?" Or my favorite "that's just DIRECTIONAL insight".

I love "Directional insight". Translation: we heard something we didn't like and don't have the ability to fix so we'll dismiss it on the grounds of small sample size. N=...nevermind.

(caveat: I really have no idea whether they listened or whether someone at the top forced this approach down the CMO's throat or something else entirely, but as an outsider, it appears they went to learn and they listened.)

Customers (and perhaps no more than 8x3x2) told Domino's their pizza sucked. They listened. And then, they answered the critical question - and it appears, they answered correctly - do they launch a campaign that attempts to convince consumers they're wrong about what they think they tasted OR do they acknowledge the consumers might be right, head back to the kitchen, fix the product, admit there was a problem with the product, claim to have fixed it and THEN attempt to convince consumers to give it another try? They obviously made the difficult choice for the latter.

A smart business decision, for sure. But what I applaud here is the ability of the advertising to stay on strategy and deliver this message rather than bury it in flashy creative non-sequitor. The TV spots tell the course correction story in an arresting way and the pizza holdouts effort is both unconventional and impactful.

I've heard plenty creative teams rant and rave about the impossibility of delivering the entire message in 30 seconds. Apparantly Crispin's team didn't have that problem.

The proof is in the pudding. Or in this case, the pizza sales.

I say Domino's is ON STRATEGY.