Dominos Effect – Employees Make a Disgusting Upload to YouTube and a PR Disaster for Dominos Pizza

Fun on YouTube for some disgust for many others. A couple of employees of Dominos in USA uploaded a pretty enraging video of them putting cheese into their noses before adding them onto customer orders. The thought is sickening enough for anyone ordering Pizza anywhere now, but for Dominos it is a bigger PR catastrophe, for in this case whatever their brand values stand,  it can’t safeguard employee behavior against such brand identity.

The originial video was uploaded in March but was quickly removed, here’s another users upload of the same video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unMJR9-4MdA

The two employees identify themselves as Kristy and Michael with Michael doing the nasty bit while Kristy obliging with the video. The current video has already got over 700,000 views and over 4,000 comments.

According to Adage, Dominos is being cautious in its approach.  Dominos spokesman Tim McIntyre said the chain has identified the employees, and they are expected to be terminated today. The affected franchisee has filed a criminal complaint, and Mr. McIntyre said Dominos is examining its own legal options, including a possible civil action against the pair for defamation of the brand. (source)

The post on AdAge also includes an email from Kristy apologising for the video and claiming that it was just a prank and none of the said sandwiches were sent to customers. We had recently seen how social media can wreck havoc into an unresponsive and in fact dictating brands in Ekalavya’s post about Skoda. Besides the impact that it can have, it is also the speed at which information spreads on social media that will give headaches for PR pros. Over 700,000 views in one day, Dominos PR people must have their heads buzzing. It would be interesting to see their response and reactions on how they rebuild the dented brand image in the coming days.