Domino's read its worst reviews on air, and the new recipe did the rest

By the end of 2008 Domino’s was in trouble. The stock had lost most of its value since 2007, same-store sales were flat, and the company closed 108 US stores in 2009. Its focus groups were brutal: customers compared the crust to cardboard and the sauce to ketchup. In December 2009, with the agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Domino’s launched the Pizza Turnaround campaign. In the ads, executives sat in front of a camera and read the comments out loud: “Worst excuse for pizza I ever had.” “Totally devoid of flavor.” Patrick Doyle, then president of the US business and chief executive from March 2010, told the Associated Press that “the old days of trying to spin things simply doesn’t work anymore”.

The admission came with a new product. Domino’s replaced the pizza recipe it had used for decades with a garlic-seasoned crust, a sauce with red pepper and a blend of mozzarella and provolone. In the first quarter of 2010 domestic same-store sales grew 14.3%, which the company called its largest quarterly gain since its stock market listing. In July 2010 it extended the idea with Show Us Your Pizza, asking customers to send photos of their deliveries and promising that its advertising would show real pizzas, made by its own staff, without food stylists.

Measuring the gap in public

The books define the expectations gap as the distance between what a company promises and what the customer perceives it delivers: promise minus proof. Most companies treat their gap as private information. They run the focus groups, read the complaints, and then keep advertising the old promise at the old volume, which widens the gap every time a customer opens a box.

Domino’s put the gap on television. That move cost something real: the company handed its critics a ready-made quote and told millions of people who had never complained that its own customers thought the product was bad. In the method, proofs gain strength as they become more costly to the company that gives them. A brand that reads its worst reviews in a national ad has given up the option of pretending later, and the audience can see that.

The recipe carried the apology

The confession on its own would have been a story about a bad pizza. Words about a past failure are a promise to do better, and a company that has just admitted a failure has very little credit left for promises. What made the campaign work was that the proof arrived in the same breath: a recipe anyone could order that week and judge for themselves. Confessing that the old pizza was poor only had value because there was a different pizza to taste the same evening.

This is the order the method recommends for any recovery. Show one thing that is different and let the customer find it. Domino’s asked customers to try the new pizza, and the first-quarter numbers suggest that many accepted the invitation.

Honesty as a standing rule

Show Us Your Pizza turned a one-off admission into a policy. Food advertising has long relied on stylists and retouching, and most customers know the pizza in the picture will look different from the one at the door. By promising to show only real pizzas, Domino’s shrank the gap at the point where it usually opens: the moment the box is opened and compared with the ad.

A rule like that has a cost, because it has to be kept on every campaign that follows. It also builds a habit in the audience, who learn to read the brand’s images as evidence. The 2009 turnaround is often remembered for its candour. In our reading, the lasting decision was the commitment that came after it, which kept the promise at the height the product could actually reach.

If your own gap between promise and perception is something your team discusses only behind closed doors, train your team to measure it and to decide which proof would close it.