During the crisis happened, Domino’s did not respond immediately but responded after three days of the incident happened.
Domino’s first identifying and taking action against the culprits.
Smith (2009) stated that the company started capturing digital images of the two employees’ faces from the video and distributed a message to all United States locations seeking help in identifying them by name.
After verifying their names and locating the store, it then contacted with the storeowner and asked to have them fired immediately.
That time the company also contacted the Health Department and local police to file charges against the two culprits.
Simultaneously, Domino’s social media team immediately contacted YouTube to ask that the video be removed since it was in violation of several of the site’s guidelines.
When Domino’s did not respond in a time manner, it allowed room for the crisis to grow, and social media websites were exploding with talk of the incident.
Back in 2009, Domino’s ever had a social media presence, hence Domino’s was not extremely familiar with the vehicles they were submerging themselves in.
Although they had a team in place, they did not have a social media strategy in place at the time.
However, after the viral attack on YouTube, Domino’s created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo.
Once Domino’s realized that the crisis was building momentum and increasing its viral exposure, they quickly set up a Twitter account to directly communicate with their customers and respond to any questions or concerns.
Domino’s decided it was time for an official response to the crisis.
However, Domino’s did not choose to release a traditional press release, instead Domino’s responded by having Patrick Doyle, Domino’s president to respond in a video uploaded to YouTube.
In the video, Doyle apologized to the public for the recent hoax.
Doyle clarified that Domino’s was treating the issue seriously, despite the people’s claims that it was a hoax.
Doyle continued by saying that the two culprits had been fired and the arrest warrants for felonies were out for their head.
The company did have a consistent spokesperson when speaking to media, however, president of Domino’s not the spokesperson speaking to the media.
It is appropriate to have a separate spokesperson for the apologize video because the president is looked to as a public image of the company.
In posting the video response, Domino’s used the word “disgusting” in the video title just as had been done with the original video so that the new video would come up first when users searched for the original.
The company the posted the links to its video on Twitter and on its Facebook page wall.
Within three hours of posting of the company video response to YouTube, views of the original video surged to over one million.
For the first time ever, on that day only, the search queries for keyword “Domino’s” surpassed those for “Paris Hilton” (Smith, 2009).
After addressing the situation immediately, Domino’s probably worked for a while to restore its standing and win back the trust of its consumer.
This might have been keeping in touch with consumers via social media, running public relations campaigns to emphasize quality control and food safety procedures, and remaining open and honest about handling any upcoming problems and issues.