You’ve all seen the commercial… the Domino’s franchise owner dude, Steve Dolan, Domino’s Arvada, CO, who’s gone around to the local mom and pop “competition” to let them know that Domino’s is handing out gift certificates on their behalf; $100,000 worth in fact! The stated goal is to “help impact our community in a positive way”.
You all know where this is going, don’t you?
Please. The minute an advertiser leads with altruism they may as well put up a flare that says WE’RE OUT OF CREATIVE IDEAS.
During 9 magical days (11/6/21-11/14/21) Domino’s stuffed their pizza delivery boxes with Gift certificates for local food vendors to combat the rising threat of food Delivery apps. You see, Domino’s figures that w/ a gift certificate, customers would need to circumvent the Door Dash or Grubhub’s of the world and order directly from the vendor, saving said mom and pop from “abusive” Delivery app fee’s.
After all, “Over 110,000 restaurants closed since March 2020”, so it must be all their fault. BUT wait, would even more have closed if not for delivery apps? And what about those food joints that have been introduced to new customers? BTW, what about consumers? Aren’t they part of the “community”? If Delivery App fee’s charged to restaurants don’t get capped, the offset will be to raise the prices of the food.
Meanwhile, at least one of the ‘local little guys’ despises food apps SO much that they have this to say right on their website: “If you desire delivery, we are on the Door Dash platform.“ But how could they not go along with the gag? I mean, the hypocrisy is easily worth the value derived from the exposure they are getting on National Television.
Do you think the average 22-year-old lying on his couch at 10pm gives 2 flying pieces of peperoni that Domino’s gave away some gift cards? They want cheesy deliciousness, now, regardless of how it gets there.
What’s Domino’s beef about connecting with consumers digitally anyway? In 2015, HALF of their orders came from digital channels (and has only grown since) because with the full menu in their hand, hungry monsters are more likely to get extra stuff and increase the receipt total. Not one of the dozens of delivery aggregators are profitable. Domino’s on the other hand cooked up 12.2 Billion in Sales in 2017 globally. Delivery apps are forecast to bite off 1-2% of Domino’s sales either through fee’s or by luring consumers to restaurants that never delivered before. So, according to my calculations…..
“Cast Delivery aggregators in a bad light” PLUS “splatter your Brand all over National TV” MULTIPLIED by “garner good will by pretending to fight for the little guy” = I don’t know, “a successful strategy?”.
I love Domino’s pizza.
I have no horse in the delivery app race.
I love great ads and have a keen sense for cheesy ones.
