My hope is that you look at the believability of its message – not the follow through of the strategy. But you're correct, in order for this to work long term, the pizza has to be good.

The pizza still sucks.

I grew up on Domino's pizza and I absolutely loved it. I may have had local stores that were diamonds in the rough, but I doubt that(15-20 years ago). Nothing beat Domino's. Now, the only pizza worse than Domino's is Pizza Inn. It saddens me that the company has fallen so far in quality.

Sure they knew their previous pizza sucked. They were making money, though, which matters most in their world. But Little Caesars was kickin’ their butt in the bottom feeders of pizza category. They couldn’t match the Hot N Ready Pizza campaign (talk about cardboard flavoring), so they needed to move into a new direction.

And these new ads make me more willing to try their new pizza, something I’ve avoided in all the other ads they’ve used about how good their pizza supposedly was. None of the previous ads were believable at all. This one made me sit up and notice. Isn’t that the goal of advertising? I think they got that part of the equation right. Now the PEF has to match up to the ad. If it does, they’ll do great. If it doesn’t, then the new ad campaign will just help them fall more quickly.

Doesn’t Roy constantly say that advertising only speeds up the inevitable?

Admittedly, I’m applauding the transparency and believability of the message – NOT the new recipe. I haven’t tried it and cannot speak to its quality. But I agree, if it doesn’t impress, Domino’s is in even deeper waters than they’ve been swimming in recently.

Colbert’s piece inadvertently hits on it. They have tried to wow us with new recipes and crusts. They claimed they used real cheese before (the cheese industry emblem was in their spots) and otherwise convince us that the product is good. The only difference this time is an admission that they suck donkey balls. That and the fact they tacitly admit they lied to us for years. The risk in what they are doing is not in the fact that they discuss their flaws. That risk pales in comparison to these:

1. That the remainder of the market that is willing to believe them tries the product and actually does find it is improved.

2. That the market does not simply view this as a ploy…just like all of the other ploys Domino’s has used to convince them that this time…this time…the food actually tastes good.

3. The pizza isn’t, in fact, any better and then NO one listens to them again.

Credibility is a nice attribute. But the problem is that Domino’s credibility on this issue is long since gone. The mea culpa is fine, but that will only–maybe–get them one last sale to the skeptical. If that first bite is not a home run that tastes like it came from Dino and Giovanni’s down the street, especially after that build up on the new recipe, who would ever trust anything they said again? It’s an incredibly high-risk strategy for them with some upside, but a shit load of downside. They are walking a tightrope without a net on this one.

Still, what impressed me most was a radio ad I heard while driving in the car yesterday. It used some of the harsh criticism from consumers to boost credibility. Sadly, I was unable to locate it and went with the video instead.

Quick question: amidst Domino’s admirable admission of piss poor quality, did you find their very earnestness and surprise to be credibility weakening?

I kept thinking, “give me a freaking break, dude, like, you didn’t know your pizza was substandard? Do you not have taste buds? Have you never ordered one of your pizzas anonymously? You had to “rethink” everything? Really? It’s freaking pizza! It just aint that hard to make a decent one. It’s not like your pizza sucked because you messed up a super-difficult recipe, your pizza sucked because you willingly used inferior products to make it. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you use 3rd rate, processed cheese, then your pizza won’t taste very good. And yet you want to act shocked in front of the camera and have me believe it? What do you take me for?”

Anyway, bravo to Domino’s for turning things around, but I found the very spin they tried to put on this turned me off to the point where I started discounting their turnaround story. I also found their “we’re one big team at Domino’s schtick to fly in the face of a certain viral video that popped up on the internet a year or so back.

What was your take on those aspects of the commercial? Did you find them to be credibility killers, too?

- Jeff