Terrorized into Excellence
Anecdotally, I can tell you that the Dominos Pizza debacle — in which some scabrous pizzamakers in a North Carolina outlet chronicled their disgusting abuses for YouTube — will affect the chain’s business.
How do I know? Because my “mainstream” bride found out about this episode on her own, and when the kids clamored for Dominos, she cursed in Welsh.
When my bride cusses in an ancient Celtic tongue, you don’t cross her again.
Dominos is trying to get ahead of the situation. They joined Twitter. The CEO posted an apology to YouTube (with the SEO-savvy title, “Disgusting Dominos People” — wonder if that was the top-trending Google search at the time?) … Such Social Media moves might satisfy the digerati but will they satisfy regular folks like Mrs. Defren? Not as likely.
I like Shel Holtz’s idea: “wouldn’t it be cool if Domino’s installed webcams in every kitchen so customers could watch their food being prepared at their local restaurant?”
With cheap webcams, I don’t see this as being financially impossible.
A national media campaign could tout this Herculean effort at transparency. Folks like my wife would be empowered to police the local pizza joint for any violations — and could report directly to 
Dominos Corporate if some “gross” negligence ever occured. And thus my kids could swamp their mom’s protests: “If you’re so worried, let’s watch them make it for us! It’ll be fun!”
That would be an effective campaign for Dominos. But what does it say about the state of Corporate Culture that some of the most prominent brands to join the Social Media sphere have been “forced” to do so by horrific events?
“ComcastCares” is great, but didn’t that effort start soon after the “Comcast Guy Fell Asleep on My Couch” incident?
Everyone loves “RichardatDELL” (and friends), but didn’t my friend Richard get hired after the Dell Hell incident?
That’s not to say that other Big Brands participating in Social Media do so because they’ve screwed up: but I can tell you that many of the brand managers we talk to at SHIFT are “terrified” about the many ways Social Media can go sideways, when we discuss how-to best move forward.
“What if something goes wrong?” they ask. “It will,” we say.
As they blanche, we continue: “But by getting involved early — by making some smart moves before something goes wrong — you’ll build more effective listening posts, and, you’ll buy your brand some credibility and time to respond appropriately. In fact you’ll have a better feel for ‘what is appropriate,’ by that point. And best of all, you’ll have a new base of steady friends who will have your back.”
What do you think? Does the fact that a brand joins the Social Media scene only after a crisis cheapen their conversation? Or do you give them the benefit of the doubt?
Will you feel the same way a year or two from now, by which point it will have been even more obvious that these brands ought to have “joined the conversation” a while ago?
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This is an interesting post. Reactive companies may have been ‘forced’ to join the conversation, but even so, social media has not only helped them recover from these incidents, but it’s helping their bottom line in the process. I would agree that it is probably best to join the conversation before you are ‘forced’ to, but I don’t think anyone really remembers why you start, just that you are there.
Isn’t the practice of REACTION verses PRO-ACTION the scale that is classically always tilted towards the former in business? It costs money to fix problems, it requires manpower to fix problems.
What I feel like corporations forget that the easiest way to grow is to innovate, and in innovation they can be proactive to solve, improve and remove opportunities for tragic employee screw-ups.
But shouldn’t Dominoes be taking good enough care of their employees that they aren’t compelled to stick cheese up their nose? Do the employees have such little respect for the company they work for and the customers they serve?
Great post that further highlights how communications should be integrated into the operations of most business instead of being treated as an add-on.
In the pizza example, an operational crisis would be things like a supply shortage or inability to staff fully. Companies go to great lenghts to plan for these contingencies and minimize them and while you certainly can’t plan for everything, doing that groundwork in the beginning puts you in a much better place that simply reacting to the world around you. So long as a company’s business depends on communicating with the public, those communications should be treated as a similar operational necessity and steps should also be taken to minimize them.
In business everything is viewed through the cost/benefit lens, but somehow communications is expected to provide only benefits. If you aren’t willing to accept some of the costs/risks of frontloading your communications operations, don’t expect the full benefits to be there when you really need them.
I think social media seems so terrifying and incomprehensible to most large companies, they’d rather NOT dive until UNTIL a travesty forces them to do so via damage control. You’re right to encourage companies to be proactive, but — as with “green” technology — even smart ideas don’t catch on until there’s a fiscal need to change the status quo.
Great post. I think that from a reputation management standpoint, the sooner the better for any company that desires to participate in the discussions and content that is being generated by customers.
It starts with getting visibility to what is out there and being aware and responsive to both the positive and negative. Step 1 is listen.
All good points. As I read on a blog today (www.everydaypr.net) the worst time to try to start making friends and building relationships is during the crisis. Companies have got to realize that sooner of later.
Todd,
Enjoyed your post as usual. All I can add is that I think I give brands the benefit of the doubt when joining SM, however I’m less concerned that they do it out of a crisis, and more concerned that they do it out of seeing SM tools as a megaphone or another way of pushing advertising at me.
So long as show respect, listen, and participate, then its not important to my how they got here, but what they’ll do now that they’re here.
@ryancmiller
I support brand terrorism if it wakes up major companies to the fact that they need a comprehensive strategy for social media…and not just one to put out fires.
We can teach them a ton about the right ways to do things…if they let us.
Todd – a great post. It is a sad commentary on some of the major brands that they need a crisis to truly get engaged with their customers through social networks. That said, there’s always going to be the early adopters, the followers and the group that says, “oh crap!” I applaud Dominos, and others like them for at least realizing that they’ve made a mistake and get engaged. The true harm would be getting exposed and then continuing along the same path.
This is a great point, but not a new concept. Crisis Communicators and other communication professionals have been advising clients to get involved early for decades (yes, before the Internet!). They tell clients to communicate openly and to listen to their audience in order to not only address conflict and potential crisis situations before they become a crisis, but to build a community of people who will remember the company positively and be willing to defend it against attacks during a bad time. I remember a professor who referred to it as “stocking up good will.”
While many of our clients may be afraid of SM, it is really just a new way to do old business. Those who jump in first have the luxury of learning and growing with a medium. Those who wait until the crisis hits may fall victim to the learner’s faux pas at a critical time.