How digital helped Domino’s winning the pizza wars?

Based on the sales in global retail, Domino’s edged out Pizza Hut by becoming “the largest pizza company in the world”

Domino’s generated $12.2 billion in global sales for 2017 compared to Pizza Hut’s $12.03 billion.

The advancement in technology combined with the creative marketing campaigns has promoted Domino’s digital business over the likes of Pizza Hut and Papa John.

Here’s a look at some of the critical ways Domino’s embraced digital to contribute its success.

Pizza turnaround

In 2009, two of Domino’s employees filmed a prank while they are working and posted on Youtube. The video went viral, putting Domino’s in a challenging situation.

At first, the company made a mistake in social media crisis management as other companies that have failed to deal with a crisis. Domino’s responded quickly by taking action to fire employees and set up a Twitter account to observe the customers’ conversation that was talking about it. The company found that customers also commented about the taste of its pizza. After that the company decided to benefit by using social media, it launched Pizza turnaround campaign with the #newpizza hashtag. The campaign came with an honest and self-deprecating, admitted that its pizza sucked and announced a new and reinvented product. This campaign kicked off a change in brand perception and generated a lot of buzzes.

Although admitting mistakes is very risky for the business, it reinvented itself successfully as an honest brand.

Digital ordering

After Domino’s realised that the internet is critical to its business. The company has launched digital ordering tools which including the tracking tool (called Dominos’ Pizza Tracker) that provides the real-time tracking of customers’ orders from start to finish, and Dominos’ Profile feature that can save customers’ information such as delivery address, payment method, and their favourite order, to speed their orders.

Moreover, Domino’s digital ordering tools are not only available on desktop and mobile platforms like iOS and Android but also available across a multitude of platforms. For instance, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Text, Zero clicks, Twitter, Ford Sync, Voice, Smart watches (Apple watch, Android Wear, Pebble), and Samsung smart TV.

Domino’s Anyware is used to call this cross-platform technology. The purpose of this digital model is enabling customers to order pizza anywhere, anytime with minimal friction as much as possible.

Dom the pizza bot

Dom the Pizza bot is one of Domino’s digital ordering tools that allow the customer to order on Facebook Messenger. While many companies have integrated chatbots into their marketing strategy already, many have failed because the technology is too limited to allow users to have more than a basic decision-tree.

As Facebook is the most popular networks worldwide and I spend the most time on this social network. It turned out that Dom the Pizza Bot is one of my favourites because the Domino’s chatbot doesn’t just provide pizza on-demand, it is slightly smarter than that and got a little personality.

I was amazed to find that it is not just a bot, but at least have a sense of humour. With an irreverent and cheeky tone of voice, it sends humorous replies, and many users are likely to reply cheekily in return. So far as we know, this should not give much value in the long run, but still good enough to provide a little entertainment for Domino’s loyal customers – perhaps it may act as a sign of additional innovation in digital ordering.

The power of emojis

To offer the height of convenience to its customers, Domino’s has been using emojis which had become a language of its own. It decided to allow customers to order by tweeting the pizza emoji 🍕to @Dominos. That being said, it shows how much emojis penetrates consumer behaviour in everyday life, and this digital ordering is used to ramp up its sense of fun on social.

Become popular in younger consumers

It comes as no surprise that Domino’s has become a popular brand, especially with a younger population, and the fact that four-fifths of Domino’s sales come from digital channels. Because of its ability to access current social trends, allows customers to order from any channels they choose whether using chatbot on Facebook Messenger, or with an emoji on Twitter, or using a popular voice-driven smart speaker, Domino’s has them covered.

Is it a gimmick or a real valuable consumer tool?

From my point of view, it does seem like more of a marketing gimmick than offers real value to customers. However, it builds brand awareness fairly and probably increase its reputation as a youth-focused brand. That has proven to be important in maintaining the popularity of Domino’s with younger consumers, many of whom have demonstrated satisfaction with brands that make them participate in various platforms.

References

1. (2019). Retrieved from Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
2. (2019). Retrieved from Domino’s Anyware: https://anyware.dominos.com/
3. (2019). Retrieved from Corporate Dominos UK: https://corporate.dominos.co.uk/about-us?_ga=2.105387203.1718458075.1551483717-65686787.1551483717
4. Clifford, S. (2009, April 15). Video Prank at Domino’s Taints Brand. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html
5. Domino’s Pizza Chatbot. (2017, November 23). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhlzCgpb-MM
6. DOMINO’S PIZZA TRACKER. (2019). Retrieved from Domino’s: https://www.dominos.co.nz/inside-dominos/technology/pizza-tracker
7. Gilliland, N. (2016, August 12). Domino’s introduces ‘Dom the Pizza Bot’ for Facebook Messenger. Retrieved from https://econsultancy.com/domino-s-introduces-dom-the-pizza-bot-for-facebook-messenger/
8. The Pizza Turnaround. (2009, December 21). Retrieved from Pizza turnaround: http://pizzaturnaround.com/
9. Witsil, F. (2018, Feburary 22). Domino’s pizza chain now biggest in the world. Retrieved from https://eu.freep.com/story/money/business/2018/02/21/dominos-pizza-hut-sales/359106002/