Domino’s sucked. And did something about it.

I find it hard to really like things. Especially being in this industry of critics. It’s hard to get excited over new brands or campaigns because we’re always trying to reverse-engineer the process and creative.

So that’s why I find the new Domino’s Pizza campaign so good. It was genuine enough to pass through my B.S. filter, yet the message was bold enough to make me curious about what they were selling. In short, they said “you hated our old pizza – our bad. We took it personally, now try this”. I agree wholeheartedly. Having gone through four years of being a starving student, like many others I detested yet still depended on Domino’s Pizza for their cheap and stale pies.

Their new Pizza Turnaround campaign is backed with a simple but effective web strategy, complete with the extended commercial and refreshingly unfiltered tweets. Another thing I like about this campaign is that it’s not funny, proving that you don’t always have to use humour to make your point in advertising.

What’s the risk of admitting your old pizza was comparable to chewing on a used Band-Aid? Not as much as there is to gain. People love when companies admit their mistakes and will only look forward to better pizza in the future. It’s quite a bit different than Ford pseudo-admitting they made bad cars – there are still millions of people who own those ‘mistakes’. I’m curious to see how this campaign is received, but more importantly I’m interested to see if we can get the new recipe in Canada. I’ll keep you posted.