Get yourself a PR firm…today!
In classic blog fashion (classic?), I’m going to blog about an article I just read that was written by someone else who was reporting on a story about something that already happened…
It’s about that unfortunate incident at a North Carolina Domino’s pizza franchise — the one that was recorded on video and posted on YouTube for the entire online world to see — and then bled into the off-line world of TV, radio, print, etc. It was unsettling to say the least and you can see it yourself on YouTube. Basically, a sandwich maker stuck a piece of cheese up his nose and then placed it on a customer’s sandwich … lots of laughter in the background. Then he faux-farted (I think) on a piece of salami for placement on said sandwich. More laughter. Definitely makes you think twice about ordering from Domino’s or any delivery food company for that matter. Disgusting.*
That said, a blogger whose post I read shortly after the whole thing came down predicted the end of the Dominoes brand — 50 years in the making, brought down in a minute. I personally think that conclusion goes too far. A bad mark on the brand, yes. Its complete demise? Not from a single video made by a couple of dumb kids at a store in North Carolina, even if it did spread like the plague on the internet.
As you’d expect, PR Week covered Domino’s now-much maligned PR response to the incident on the cover of its April 20th issue. The headline: “Crisis forces Domino’s to revamp social media plan.” The article covers Domino’s typical and very corporate crisis tactics: fire the employees, contain the story to those already aware, put out a statement…you know the drill. But, they didn’t reach out into the broader online world. They neglected the very community who were most exposed to, and at most risk from, the video (not to mention those who had accelerated the virility of it in the first place.) It wasn’t until some unbelievable amount of time after the video broke — 48 hours! — that Domino’s changed strategy (note to self: write a post about how ridiculously fast we’re expected to move these days.)
Let’s see what the folks at Domino’s might have been thinking here: brand crisis starts and grows exponentially online via social media … What to do, what do do … got it! Let’s issue a press release. Brilliant. They finally got some good advice from none other than their ad agency who evidently could no longer stand idly by and watch its client implode. The article calls out that Domino’s doesn’t have professional PR agency representation. Instead, all PR is handled in-house. They go it alone.
This brings me to my point (finally!) I am sure Domino’s has very talented PR pros inside the company. I have nothing but respect for internal PR resources. Many of our PR clients are in-house professionals who do excellent work and, so as not to throw myself under the bus, I used to have one of those internal PR departments at a really big company. But the big lesson here is this: in times of crisis (and during the good times too) use a PR firm people!!!. Internal PR pros know their employers’ businesses well and will fall on a sword to protect its reputation. This is their job. PR firms recognize hard-to-see opportunities and risk, and bring to the table points of view that internal resources sometimes can’t because they’re too close to the company. This is our job. Together, we have all angles covered. Working as a cohesive team we can generate more creative ideas, execute with more accuracy and, having seen both sides of the world myself, generate better, more meaningful results.
This is especially true during crises when internal PR departments are often too busy fighting brush fires and taking direction from (many) different people to pause and look at the situation objectively. In Domino’s case, the fact that the “classic” corporate response was, as we say, a sound only a dog could hear, was lost on everyone inside. If Domino’s had professional, third-party PR representation before the cheese-up-the-nose scandal they would have most likely: a. had a crisis communications plan in place that most certainly would have included social media outreach and, b. had a partner on whom to rely to solve complex PR problems in the heat of the flames while they manned the hoses. This works, trust me.
Conclusion: if you’re an inside marketing/PR manager who is charged with stewarding the reputation of your company and the value of your brand (one that took millions or perhaps billions of dollars to build), think seriously about searching for, and securing, a PR firm — crisis specialists or full-service — whatever fits your needs. Or, think about your life the day your brand gets devastated by a YouTube video or the night following the report on NBC Nightly News. No thank you.
* As a very serious, grown-up marketing professional I am obviously troubled by the brand crisis and vast public relations storm that ensued for Domino’s. But if I put myself in the shoes of a 17 year-old kid working late at night at a pizza place with nothing to do but make sandwiches? … ok, kinda funny. No excuse mind you (but funny). Hey, if this happened in a Farrelly Brothers movie we’d all be howling with laughter.
-Dave Goldberg