Monday Morning Media Minute

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Truth in advertising.  I’ve always thought Domino’s pizzas tasted like cardboard.  But I never expected them to agree with me.

So, I was pleasantly surprised a couple weeks ago when I saw the Domino’s ad, you’ve probably seen it too, acknowledging what I already knew — their crust tastes like cardboard and their sauce tastes like ketchup.

Well, they were just repeating customer complaints.  But they also said they’ve fixed the problem.  And they’re hoping a lot of us will buy one of their pizzas to see if their new pizzas really are better than the ones they used to make.

It’s great advertising.  And it makes several points worth noting:

• Great storytelling starts by grabbing your audience’s attention.  They did that.  Looking for a way to get your audience’s attention?  Start by telling them something that surprises them.

• Conceding obvious weaknesses in your story can help you gain credibility for the messages you really care about.  This is a point I often make during media training.  Don’t try to defend every point — especially the ones you know are indefensible.  Acknowledging a mistake or two is a great way to gain credibility for the things you really care about.  Okay, your pizza tasting like cardboard isn’t a small point.  Unless, of course, enough of us believe it that it’s hurting your sales – and you can tell us with a straight face that you’ve fixed it.

• No matter how strong your story, the proof is in the . . . pizza.  Domino’s “cardboard” ad works as an ad because it got our attention.  But the real proof of whether it worked will be decided by whether enough people who give them another try agree they’re now making good pizzas.  I think the verdict is still out on that one.

I also heard from several of you last week who said Toyota is mishandling their big recall.  I don’t agree.  I think the verdict is still out on that one, too.

Crisis Communications 101:  Acknowledge the problem, fix it, and make a credible promise to assure us it won’t happen again.

Toyota has stepped up to the problem.  And they say they’ll begin fixing it this week.  If they do, and if they live up to their promise of restoring our confidence in the quality of their cars, then they will have done a good job.

But they’re in the same boat as Domino’s.  What they say will be less important than what they do.  If they’ve really begun cutting corners that affect quality as some analysts have suggested, and if that shows up in more problems with their cars, then Toyota’s reputation will suffer.  Ditto, if they screw up the repairs to the cars they’ve recalled.

But if the accelerator problem proves to be an aberration and if they fix the problem, they’ll ultimately come out of their current crisis just fine.  In fact, if they do a great job of fixing the accelerator problem, this incident could actually help their reputation. But the jury’s still out on that.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?