Introduction
Domino’s Pizza, Inc. trading as Domino’s, is a Michigan-based multinational pizza restaurant chain founded in 1960 and led by CEO Russell Weiner. In 1960, Tom Monaghan and his brother, James, took over the operation of DomiNick’s, an existing location of a small pizza restaurant chain that had been owned by Dominick DeVarti in Ypsilanti, Michigan. A $500 down payment secured the deal.
Early years
In 1973, Domino’s Pizza introduced the ‘30 Minutes or It’s Free slogan, a promotion whereby the customer would receive a free pizza if their order didn’t arrive within 30 minutes of when it was placed. Speed and service were prioritized by Monaghan, which resulted in ground-breaking development with which rivals struggled to keep up. Its primary offering became pizza delivery rather than the pizza itself. The company’s prospects were bleak in 2008 due to stagnant growth and heavy competition by competitors like Pizza Hut.
Domino’s reinvented its core product: Pizza
Customers’ comments like “Domino’s tastes like cardboard,” “Totally devoid of flavor,” and “Sauce tastes like ketchup” were concerning. After doing a focus group study, Domino’s Pizza discovered that it excelled in all areas other than pizza. In a hurry to make the fastest delivery, they had sacrificed their main product.
How did it revive
The CEO of Domino’s, J. Patrick Doyle, listened closely to the criticism and created the legendary advertisement campaign, “Our Pizza Sucks.” The kitchen staff had to reimagine their pizza and create it from scratch. In the end, the culinary team tested more than 7500 different combinations.
The chain dropped its original recipe and came up with a new crust formula and fresher ingredients. The move may have been bold, but it paid off.
A path forward: Utilizing technological breakthrough
Following the success of their newly reinvented pizza, Domino’s Pizza concentrated on enhancing its delivery methods and channels. Domino’s is not just in the pizza-making business, but in the pizza-delivery business, which means it has to be in the technology business and has indeed lived up to that. It has already developed a self-driving pizza delivery robot, tested drone delivery of pizza, and even created a program called Anywhere that enables Alexa and Slack ordering without under shadowing their pizza quality.
