Domino’s Pizza had a brilliant marketing plan. It’s easy: Give pizza away after a no-hitter is thrown in Major League Baseball. The plan, seemingly so easy to execute, backfired on Domino’s and may end up costing customers rather than gaining customers.
After Josh Beckett’s no hitter for the L.A. Dodgers, Domino’s Pizza gave away 20,000 pizzas this week. Domino’s definitely held up their end of the marketing. However, their systems could not handle the workload, causing much confusion and major order delays that left some Dodgers fans pizza-less.
Domino’s has offered MLB fans the chance at free pizza in the past, namely at the beginning of the 2013 season where Domino’s offered 10,000 free pizzas to those who subscribed to MLBTV after a no-hitter. They ran that free pizza campaign and both campaigns were successfully executed.
This year, Domino’s decided to up the ante and throw 20,000 pizzas in the ring, and open up the contest to all MLB.com subscribers . The pizza giant was pleased as punch when Josh Beckett threw his no hitter; 20,000 pizzas were on the way to those who won the free grub. Domino’s was expecting a major bump in their Twitter followers list following the no-hitter.
However, after the confusion and the inability of Domino’s to keep up with the demand, many well timed #DomiNoNo jokes were found around the Twitterscape.
Logged on at exactly 3 pm to get my free pizza from @MLB and @dominos only to get #DomiNoNo ‘d so no pizza for me ?
— Scott (@25SecretSQRL25) May 28, 2014
You have to forgive @dominos for the #dominono server failure. They aren’t used to people WANTING their pizza.
— Doug Hanna (@DouHan) May 27, 2014
just got no-no’ed by @dominos . feel like chase utley watching a medium two topping pizza down the middle for the final out. #dominono @MLB
— katie burroughs (@katieyuko) May 27, 2014
Judging by the #dominono stream, about 6 people have successfully gotten free pizza. Just 19,994 to go, guys!
— Heather (@medevam) May 27, 2014
An online Twitter sentiment tracker rates the negative feelings on the #DomiNoNo hashtag as slightly under 50 percent. So roughly half the people using that hashtag negatively reviewed Domino’s Pizza.
Domino’s can certainly fix this mishap. Surely they will be more prepared next time they decide to offer a major giveaway. In fact, it seems that people almost expect these kinds of snafus when a major giveaway is handled through social media. Also, Domino’s handled the negative reviews through the #DomiNoNo hashtag fairly well by owning their errors. Learn from this Domino’s!
