Tired of its reputation as a purveyor of second-rate fast food, Domino's Pizza has decided to take drastic action. The pizza chain is throwing out its 50-year-old recipe for pizza and rewritting it from scratch. Accompanying this move is a new ad campaign acknowledging that all this time its pizza has been "bland" and tasted like "ketchup and cardboard." (See Domino's new "Pizza Turnaround" commercial.) Will the bold strategy work — or just alienate the company's millions of loyal customers?
This level of honesty is exhilarating: The company's "candor" about its flaws is "extraordinary," says Christopher Borrelli at the Chicago Tribune. Okay, so America's response so far has been more "guarded curiosity" than outright praise... and the pizza itself hasn't actually "improved" that much. But Domino's honesty may even have earned the company something "more valuable" than rave reviews: "A little goodwill."
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