Jake Szymanski

Earlier today @foursquaregames tweeted an article about Dominos new foursquare campaign - http://ht.ly/1Pwsn

“Chris Moore, CEO of Domino’s, said, “Our customers are heavy users of social media so it makes sense for us to communicate with them in this way.”

The article then goes on to outline a number of giveaways that Dominos will run on foursquare for mayors of their stores and checked-in patrons. 

Dominos approach to their situation with customers dissatisfied with their pizza has been a true course, however; they neglected to truly create a new pizza that people like. There are a number of reviews of their “new” pizza that rank high on Google with just a simple search of:

“Dominos pizza still sucks” 

http://www.yelp.com/topic/atlanta-dominos-pizza-still-sucks

http://www.rateitall.com/i-8650-dominos-pizza.aspx

http://www.ppc.bz/how-to-make-money/dominos-pizza-sucks-still

By bringing in more customers while consumers still have mediocre feelings about a debatably better product, their money and efforts with foursquare could be ill spent. Bringing in people for FREE food means that people will come there for the “free food” and not because it’s Dominos. 

It’s just like when MCAD holds a gallery show and puts out free appetizers for the attendees. The whole of the school shows up to eat, but very few actually digest the art of the exhibit. 

Dominos can run a promo on foursquare, but unless they have the product quality to retain customers purely because their product is just that good, their campaign will just be a flash in the pan - a spike in sales. 

This is not how the Future of Advertising will work. If you want sustained consumer engagement and purchase of your product, you must first put out a high quality product a la KFC’s Grilled Chicken. 

Dominos went about their process correctly, but if I were to make a suggestion, I would advise that Dominos should have listened to their consumers after their pizza reinvention instead of making up fake house visits. If they would have monitored internet buzz more carefully, they would have seen reviews like the ones posted above. 

Or, better yet they could have created the second wave of their campaign specifically around customer feedback and really gotten into the opinions of their patrons to iteratively develop their new creation to suit their customer’s preferences. Maybe they could have constructed a whole menu of different pizza topping combinations around customer feedback? 

However they did it, Dominos should have listened more closely to their consumers, iteratively developed their advances accordingly, and then gone to promotion and giveaways if they wanted to achieve a sustained sales increase. Giveaways without a high quality product only lead to a loss of centralized brand equity.  

Finals done, Internship done, chicago internship and housing secure, mountain biking - ongoing.

Working this weekend on our presentation in NYC on Tuesday, moving out of my apartment at MCAD, and celebrating my friend’s graduation from this amazing school. We’ll be sad to see them go, but they’ve got some interesting plans lined up and I know they’ll do great.

Those streets are gonna make me feel brand new - In New York!

Team Members: Jake Szymanski, Chris Havranek, & Nick Dahl

KENDA Final Presentation

Posted via web from MCAD 2010 - Future of Advertising Class | Comment »

boriana:

My neighborhood is indeed as vibrant and diverse as the article says and I’m so happy to live and work here.