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[Pete-zza]

An article (reproduced below) at the New York Time's website at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html?em discusses harm that was done to the Domino's brand by a couple of employees who filmed a prank at a Domino's kitchen and posted it on YouTube. The video was taken down by Google because of "copyright" rights claimed by one of the perpetrators. It is possible, however, that some version of the video is available elsewhere on the Internet.

April 16, 2009
Video Prank at Domino’s Taints Brand
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

When two Domino’s Pizza employees filmed a prank in the restaurant’s kitchen, they decided to post it online. In a few days, thanks to the power of social media, they ended up with felony charges, more than a million disgusted viewers, and a major company facing a public relations crisis.

In videos posted on YouTube and elsewhere this week, a Domino’s employee in Conover, N.C., prepared sandwiches for delivery while putting cheese up his nose, nasal mucus on the sandwiches, and violating other health-code standards while a fellow employee provided narration.

The two were charged with delivering prohibited foods.

By Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than a million times on YouTube. References to it were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter.

As Domino’s is realizing, social media has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into marketing crises. In November, Motrin posted an ad suggesting that carrying babies in slings was a painful new fad. Unhappy mothers posted Twitter complaints about it, and bloggers followed; within days, Motrin had removed the ad and apologized.

On Monday, Amazon.com apologized for a “ham-fisted” error after Twitter members complained that the sales rankings for gay and lesbian books seemed to have disappeared — and, since Amazon took more than a day to respond, the social-media world criticized it for being uncommunicative.

According to Domino’s, the employees told executives that they had never actually delivered the tainted food. Still, Domino’s fired the two employees on Tuesday, and they were in the custody of the Conover police department on Wednesday evening, facing felony charges.

But the crisis was not over for Domino’s.

“We got blindsided by two idiots with a video camera and an awful idea,” said a Domino’s spokesman, Tim McIntyre, who added that the company was preparing a civil lawsuit. “Even people who’ve been with us as loyal customers for 10, 15, 20 years, people are second-guessing their relationship with Domino’s, and that’s not fair.”

In just a few days, Domino’s reputation was damaged. The perception of its quality among consumers went from positive to negative since Monday, according to the research firm YouGov, which holds online surveys of about 1,000 consumers every day regarding hundreds of brands.

“It’s graphic enough in the video, and it’s created enough of a stir, that it gives people a little bit of pause,” said Ted Marzilli, global managing director for YouGov’s BrandIndex.

The Domino’s experience “is a nightmare,” said Paul Gallagher, managing director and a head of the United States crisis practice at the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. “It’s the toughest situation for a company to face in terms of a digital crisis.”

Mr. McIntyre was alerted to the videos on Monday evening by a blogger who had seen them. In the most popular video, a woman who identifies herself as Kristy films a co-worker, Michael, preparing the unsanitary sandwiches.

“In about five minutes it’ll be sent out on delivery where somebody will be eating these, yes, eating them, and little did they know that cheese was in his nose and that there was some lethal gas that ended up on their salami,” Kristy said. “Now that’s how we roll at Domino’s.”

On Monday, commenters at the site Consumerist.com used clues in the video to find the franchise location in Conover, and told Mr. McIntyre about the videos. On Tuesday, the Domino’s franchise owner fired the employees, identified by Domino’s as Kristy Hammonds, 31 and Michael Setzer, 32. The franchisee brought in the local health department, which advised him to discard all open containers of food, which cost hundreds of dollars, Mr. McIntyre said.

Ms. Hammonds apologized to the company in an e-mail message Tuesday morning. “It was fake and I wish that everyone knew that!!!!” she wrote. “I AM SOO SORRY!”

By Wednesday evening, the video had been removed from YouTube because of a copyright claim from Ms. Hammonds. Neither Ms. Hammonds nor Mr. Setzer were available for comment on Wednesday evening, said Conover’s chief of police, Gary W. Lafone.

As the company learned about the video on Tuesday, Mr. McIntyre said, executives decided not to respond aggressively, hoping the controversy would quiet down. “What we missed was the perpetual mushroom effect of viral sensations,” he said.

In social media, “if you think it’s not going to spread, that’s when it gets bigger,” said Scott Hoffman, the chief marketing officer of the social-media marketing firm Lotame. “We realized that when many of the comments and questions in Twitter were, ‘What is Domino’s doing about it’ ” Mr. McIntyre said. “Well, we were doing and saying things, but they weren’t being covered in Twitter.”

By Wednesday afternoon, Domino’s had created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to address the comments, and it had presented its chief executive in a video on YouTube by evening.

“It elevated to a point where just responding isn’t good enough,” Mr. McIntyre said.

Peter

[NY pizzastriver]

I was just coming here with this link in hand!
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20090416/Domino_s.YouTube/ < just the story.

It was also on the morning news shows today, they showed the video there, he was making a toasted sub.

So a "prank" they say, eh? What are your thoughts Peter?

If it was meant to be funny, and the food wasn't delivered, it's like a Jiffy Lube mechanic holding a 5 lb bag of sugar and a funnel in the gas tank. "This is how we fix cars and earn our repeat business!"
Then later saying "Hahaha, just kidding".

Actually, this is far far worse.

EDIT
Here's some of the video
http://www.utube-video.com/2009/04/dominos-pizza-employee-scandal.html
Lot's of info on girl who filmed it, like she's got a criminal record and all...

[Essen1]

Unbelievable! 

At least they're not getting away with it.

[Pete-zza]

So a "prank" they say, eh? What are your thoughts Peter?

J,

It's sad that some people's lives are so lacking that they have to resort to things like this just to get noticed.

Peter

[NY pizzastriver]

Peter and Mike, exactly. True indeed. The girl obviously has issues, and the guy.

I have to feel for the other 5000 (or whatever) franchise owners, and the company. This can't be a good thing to drum up sales.

Great weeks ahead for Papa John's, I feel it comin'.

[Ronzo]

Ok, so they're 31 and 32 ? ? ?

I'd understand this kind of ignorance and stupidity from teenagers, but from people who are supposed to be full blown adults?

Come on...

[Essen1]

They ran the story also in the San Francisco Chronicle and it has garnered 91 comments so far.

Quite interesting and funny what some of the people have to say:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/15/national/a202705D68.DTL&tsp=1

[NY pizzastriver]

Mike, Interesting, funny, and a bit alarming. Here's one...

Once I saw a pizza delivery driver at a red light - open up the customers pizza-( front seat) and pick off some toppings and eat them)..I took down the license plate and reported the driver to the Pizzeria chain ( the manager didn't believe me )..but at least I reported him...I no longer have any food delivered to my home.

Like someone would call and make that up just for kicks, unreal management!

Sadly this guy no longer has food delivered, so as not to worry about pilfering delivery guys. Now he just goes and gets it safe and fresh from the restaurant.  .. um...

[mmarston]

 The author, Wilfrid Sheed, once said, "The American male doesn't mature until he has exhausted all other possibilities."
The girl has no such excuse.

[Pete-zza]

An update from Businessbaking.com:

Domino's nightmare holds lessons for marketers;
Companies have to learn how to handle social-media attacks
 
Bruce Horovitz
 
It's a PR nightmare scenario: A national fast-food chain has to respond to a video, spreading rapidly online, that shows one of its employees picking his nose and placing the result in the food he's making.

That's exactly what Domino's, the nation's largest pizza delivery chain, has spent the past several days doing.

Two employees -- fired and facing charges -- posted a video on YouTube on Monday that shows one of them doing gross things to a Domino's sub sandwich he is making. Among them: sticking cheese pieces up his nose and passing gas on the salami.

The video had been viewed more than 550,000 times by Wednesday.

For Domino's, the PR response hasn't been easy. The video reflects some of the worst fears consumers have about food purchased from restaurants. The video and discussion of it has moved on to Facebook, Twitter and dozens of other social-networking sites.

But Domino's is getting fairly high marks from social-networking and crisis-management gurus about its response.

And marketers are getting an instant lesson in the dangers of an online world where just about anyone with a video camera and a grudge can bring a company to its knees with lightning speed.

"Nothing is local anymore," Domino's spokesman Tim McIntyre says. "That's the challenge of the Web world. Any two idiots with a video camera and a dumb idea can damage the reputation of a 50-year-old brand."

An arrest warrant was issued Wednesday for Michael Anthony Setzer, 32, of Conover, N.C., and Kristy Lynn Hammonds, 31, of Taylorsville, N.C., for food tampering, a felony in North Carolina, police say. McIntyre says Domino's is mulling a lawsuit.

Here are key things experts say marketers can do to quickly catch and respond effectively to similar social-networking attacks:

*Monitor social media. Big companies must actively watch Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social sites to track conversations that involve them. That will help uncover potential crises-in-the-making, says Brian Solis, a new-media specialist and blogger at PR2.0.

*Respond quickly. Domino's responded within hours. "They responded as soon as they heard about it, not after the media asked, 'What are you going to do?' " says Lynne Doll, president of The Rogers Group, a crisis-management specialist.

*Respond at the flashpoint. Domino's first responded on consumer affairs blog The Consumerist, whose activist readers helped track down the store and employees who made the video. Then it responded on the Twitter site where talk was mounting. "Domino's did the right thing by reinstituting the trust where it was lost," Solis says.

*Educate workers. It's important that all employees have some media and social-media training, says Ross Mayfield, co-founder of Socialtext, which advises companies on new media.

*Foster a positive culture. Workers who are content and customers who like your product are far less likely to tear down a company online, PR guru Katie Delahaye Paine says. "This would be a lot less likely to happen at places like Whole Foods."

*Set clear guidelines. Companies must have clear policies about what is allowed during working hours -- and what isn't, Doll says. "It won't prevent everyone from breaking the rules, but at least they'll know what the rules are."

As a result of the incident, Domino's is looking at banning video cameras in stores, McIntyre says.
 
April 16, 2009

[Essen1]

The number of comments has climbed in regards to the story in the SF Chronicle.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/comments/view?f=/n/a/2009/04/15/national/a202705D68.DTL&o=3


Couple of excerpts...

Inmates should like them . . . they both come in 30 minutes or less.

"waving salami under his rear end"-----soon he'll be accepting salami where the sun never shines. Plus he'll be doing it every 30 min. For free!

Rightfully so.

LMAO!

[NY pizzastriver]

  See, the moral here is if you do something completely gross nationally, you then become the true ''butt of the joke''. So rightfully so is right.

[smarttowers]

This sadly is what happens when places pay their employees the legal minimum and then customers treat them like dirt. This happened so often in the past that you see most every restaurant that is somewhat fast food has their preparation area viewable by the customers that come in. The only issue I see with them trying to prosecute these idiots is can they prove that they did actually deliver the tainted food. I think this is going to play out in civil court more then criminal and if they were working for domino's in the first place the chance that they will get much out of them is unlikely a 32 and 31 year old working for domino's isn't gonna have much you can take away from them. I could see Domino's trying to sue google or something for having hosted the video and that in my opinion is just wrong to even try to hold them responsible in today's society and how many video's are posted its  not even remotely feasible to view all before posting.

[NY pizzastriver]

This sadly is what happens when places pay their employees the legal minimum and then customers treat them like dirt.

What?!? First off who are all these customers treating the Domino's staff like dirt? Is this a widespread phenomenon I've not heard of? Anyone who treats someone like dirt for working at a restaurant, or another lower paying job, is just a pompous jerk with no soul anyway. When I was making 125k a year I treated the maitre d' of a fine establishment with the same respect as the pizza delivery guy. In turn  the same guy who treats a Domino's staff member badly probably also treats the maitre d' like a peasant too. Why? He's still the same jerk...just in a different place.

On the wage they pay, oh yes I agree. I think anyone who works at theDomino's sandwich counter should expect stock options, 60-70k a year minimum, 3 weeks paid vacation, and use of the company condo in Barbados.
 
Ok, maybe I don't really agree. The point is you take that job knowing full well what it pays. You then get the job and are expected to do it right. You know who can make a decent living working for Domino's, perhaps management aside? The delivery guys. BUT they have to work hard and hustle to earn it. This guy and girl could have be delivery drivers too, but then they couldn't slack off 1/2 the day making videos and putting cheese up their noses, so there's your trade off.

The rest of your post I amazingly agree with 100%. Amazing because in the first line you seem to excuse this behavior, and almost sympathize with who you rightfully then call ''these idiots'', due to low pay and mean customers. Can't agree with that part at all.

[smarttowers]

What?!? First off who are all these customers treating the Domino's staff like dirt? Is this a widespread phenomenon I've not heard of? Anyone who treats someone like dirt for working at a restaurant, or another lower paying job, is just a pompous jerk with no soul anyway. When I was making 125k a year I treated the maitre d' of a fine establishment with the same respect as the pizza delivery guy. In turn  the same guy who treats a Domino's staff member badly probably also treats the maitre d' like a peasant too. Why? He's still the same jerk...just in a different place.

On the wage they pay, oh yes I agree. I think anyone who works at theDomino's sandwich counter should expect stock options, 60-70k a year minimum, 3 weeks paid vacation, and use of the company condo in Barbados.
 
Ok, maybe I don't really agree. The point is you take that job knowing full well what it pays. You then get the job and are expected to do it right. You know who can make a decent living working for Domino's, perhaps management aside? The delivery guys. BUT they have to work hard and hustle to earn it. This guy and girl could have be delivery drivers too, but then they couldn't slack off 1/2 the day making videos and putting cheese up their noses, so there's your trade off.

The rest of your post I amazingly agree with 100%. Amazing because in the first line you seem to excuse this behavior, and almost sympathize with who you rightfully then call ''these idiots'', due to low pay and mean customers. Can't agree with that part at all.

I was not trying to justify this behavior these people are totally wrong and deserve to be punished. What I am trying to point out is that this kind of thing happens more then people know and the reasons that people do it. Just because someone has a reason doesn't make the reason justified or the act right. Your statement about 60-70k for delivery is not even remotely what I was saying.

I worked as a manager for a group who were getting minimum wage and believe it or not just .50 an hour will make someone appreciate the job more then if you paid them what was the legal lowest you can. When a company pays you the lowest they possibly can that tells the people what they think of you that then shows in their quality of work. It bothers me to see companies make billions on the back of hard working individuals because they pay them crap. And it is even more sad that these companies are only paying the people what they pay them because they were forced to do so, if they could get away with paying them less they would in many cases.

You are right the idiot who treats the delivery guy bad will most likely treat the maitre d' bad also. The big difference here is the delivery driver makes significantly less money then the maitre d'. It is much easier to deal with stuff when you are paid well to do so.

The jerks who treat these people bad can either be numerous or few but just about always there are some. Could be someone having a bad day and just passing on their frustrations to the next person, could just be a general jerk. Either way when you deal with customers you are going to have some that are just not happy no matter what you do. As for the ways they can treat these people bad it could be anything from yelling at someone cause the order is wrong to not tipping a delivery driver who delivers to the outskirts of the delivery range.

As for you taking the job you know what you get into when you take it ... many times this is not true, you only think you know what you are getting into. When someone takes their first customer service type job they generally have no idea what they will be dealing with in the long run.

Once again I am not trying to justify these individual's actions they were wrong and there is no excuse for what they did. What I am trying to basically do is say remember their actions the next time you treat someone in this type of position like crap, cause that's the way you end up getting the "special" treatment later.

[NY pizzastriver]

Ok, well said, good points all around. Also, thanks for clarifying your initial one. Yes if a company is so tight as to only wait the years that pass until a new minimum wage is passed by congress, then they are at fault. Your point on the 50 cents is a good one on that note, it's not the 50 cents so much as the feeling of being appreciated and not so replaceable by someone who will take less.

Sorry if I misjudged where you were coming from, the first line just read really badly to me. 

[smarttowers]

We had a guy that worked for the company for 9 years and minimum wage was about to go up and sadly even after 9 years he was making less then what the new increase would be. When the minimum wage went up this person was rewarded for being the hardest working employee by getting his wage the same as those who were just hired and not increased above minimum wage. I tried going to bat for the employees but that didn't do a damn bit of good the regional manager made it clear my opinions were not wanted and almost resulted in getting myself fired.

This is the kind of corporate attitude that makes me see red. And sadly there are too many companies like this. I am not saying Domino's is one of them I've never worked for them so have no clue how their company is run, I'm just trying to say that this happens and is really sad when an employee is used and abused.

[rsimon719]

This sadly is what happens when places pay their employees the legal minimum and then customers treat them like dirt.

You're kidding right? You're saying that these people who willingly worked at this store for whatever they got paid and willingly put up with whatever customers did were somehow "pushed" into this behavior?

So a waitor that is paid $2/hr that gets stiffed on a tip because the customer was a jerk should then take it out on the food they prepare and serve?

WOW! Its thinking like this that makes this sort of behavior not only in the realm of thought but actually occuring. 

[sourdough girl]

You're kidding right? You're saying that these people who willingly worked at this store for whatever they got paid and willingly put up with whatever customers did were somehow "pushed" into this behavior?

So a waitor that is paid $2/hr that gets stiffed on a tip because the customer was a jerk should then take it out on the food they prepare and serve?

WOW! Its thinking like this that makes this sort of behavior not only in the realm of thought but actually occuring. 

I worked in a restaurant for several years during high school/college and the summer I turned 18, I worked graveyard shift the entire summer.  I can tell you, it was an eye-opener.  If you think the 5-second rule is gross (yes, I witnessed a pan of fried chicken snatched from the floor and taken to the buffet line...) you should see what a night cook does when he's bored... and he wasn't even pissed at anybody or anything... just BORED.  Let's just say I never ate the mashed potatoes again.

~sd

[rsimon719]

I worked in a restaurant for several years during high school/college and the summer I turned 18, I worked graveyard shift the entire summer.  I can tell you, it was an eye-opener.  If you think the 5-second rule is gross (yes, I witnessed a pan of fried chicken snatched from the floor and taken to the buffet line...) you should see what a night cook does when he's bored... and he wasn't even pissed at anybody or anything... just BORED.  Let's just say I never ate the mashed potatoes again.

~sd

Precisely why I have lost interest in eating out over the last several months. When you start to realize that these people just don't get it; the customers are what keep them in a job. The quality has been suffering in several restaurants lately where I live and I would just as sooned eat at home anymore.. Saves me money anyhow. We used to eat out 5 or more times a week, not it has been months since I have eaten out.

I'm tired of substandard food/service and just am not going to put up with it anymore..