Domino’s realizes it makes really bad pizza

Did you know Domino’s makes lousy pizza? While this is well known throughout the rest of the nation it seems to have just become known to those at Domino’s HQ. (Only possible explanation: The execs make too much money to eat their own product.)

For a while the company tried — and failed — to make up for this by offering its product in other forms (Bread sticks! Bread bowls! Dessert Pizza!).

Now it is facing the issue head-on by saying anything that might have gone wrong is all in the past.

I love the way the execs talk about how upset they are about everyone saying the crust tastes like cardboard. They never actually apologize for making lousy pizza or explain why it happened.

Best example is this quote from company prez Patrick Doyle: “Some people didn’t give us credit for the taste of our product. That’s what we’re fixing.”

What the hell does that mean? They’re fixing people not giving them credit?

Then there’s the head chef saying, “It hit you in the heart. This is what I’ve been doing for 25 years now.” Which begs the question – Why are you still employed?

The company seems to have copied the entire ad from another Michigan based firm – GM. Like GM’s classic weasel words mea culpa, this one starts with a call to the old days when the firm was great. Except in Domino’s case the firm was never great. It was (and is) big and profitable. But it has always been known for making a product was cheap and vaguely edible, a boon to students everywhere. Harking back to that is just bizarre.

The CMO talks about how they couldn’t just tinker but had to start over from the beginning. Starting over means including such innovative things as garlic, oregano and basil. WOW!!! How the hell did they think of this?

This is all part of a classic PR strategy of immediately saying the problem is in the past even if it’s the first time it has ever been mentioned. This approach was best summed up by that great business writer Christopher Marlowe. In his play The Jew Of Malta the character Barabas brushes away any insinuation he has done wrong saying, “But that was in another country; and besides, the wench is dead.”

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Pizza chain offers cheesy apology for insulting LeBron James

In an effort to have their vaguely pizza-like product and eat it too, Papa John’s “issued an apology to Cleveland and the Cavaliers for making T-shirts with LeBron James‘ number and the word ‘crybaby’ under it.”  On Thursday Cleveland residents will be able to get a large, one-topping alleged pizza from the chain for 23 cents, James’ jersey number. The company is also kicking in $10K to a charity sponsored by the Cavaliers.

Second prize is two Papa John’s pizzas for 23 cents.

Yes I know there are places in this nation where Papa John’s is considered good pizza. I weep for those places. In Boston we have places that have already been closed by the Health Department that make better.

Sparklers, snakes & salutes*

• Fun story over at PingMagazine about an artist who is mixing Chinese socialist realist style with Western brands.
• The company I keep. Echelon Marketing Group’s blog has links to six other business sites: McKinsey & Co., Booz Allen Hamilton, the WSJ, Ad Age, Harvard Business Review and … CollateralDamage? Talk about one of these things is not like the others. I sense a medical exam for someone on the webside at Echelon.
• Toothless Invective and Rhapsodic Blather. Great name, fun blog & I have no idea who is behind it but hey they linked to me.
• The US National Hurricane Center continues to scare me by predicting there will be no tropical storm activity through tomorrow. I have a bad case of the lady doth protest too much about this. Why no word on asteroids colliding with the earth, tsunami knocking over cruise ships, towering inferni or giant radioactive bugs? Be afraid, be very afraid.
• Bet they stiffed him on the tip. Australian movie director Paul Fenech has set a world record by travelling 12,500 miles to deliver a pizza. He claimes that his three-day journey from Australia to New Zealand via Spain was aimed to raise awareness of the youth cancer charity CanTeen but I think he just got lost and this was the only excuse he could come up with.
• Meryl Streep, babe. I am a long time Meryl fan, OK. She’s a great actress, we all know that. But then I started to see the pix from The Devil Wears Prada and WOW. She’s my new pinup girl, er, woman.

*Salutes was what we in RI called the basic small firecracker that you would light up and it would go bang without damaging your hand if you were dumb enough to have it explode on you (refuses to disclose how he knows this but OWWW). What are these called elsewhere in the US?