Domino's Pizza

In my humble opinion, Dominos has had one of the must successful rebrand campaigns in the 21^st century. From being laughed at, and nationally recognized as the worst pizza chain in the early 2000s, Dominos decided to take some action around 2010 in launching their “Pizza Turnaround” campaign. They devised an ad that explained the tactics that they used to make their pizza look so much better than it did in person, and even ran national taste tests against pizza hut and papa johns with new recipes. These worked wonders for their perception of being transparent and genuine.

One of every company’s most prominent goals through the branding process is earning the trust of your target audience and this did exactly that. Not only did they launch a better tasting recipe with this campaign, but they secured a 14.3% increase in revenue from it. Seeing those returns in just a sales quarter, this prompted rebranding efforts to revolutionize not only their pizza and packaging, but also the way they provide their service. That’s right, they went on to develop the pizza tracker to give their customers the exact time of their pizza delivery once again bringing the customer experience to the forefront. On top of that, they redesigned their pizza delivery cars to keep the pizzas fresher, and created the concept of Carryout insurance just in case something happens to it before you’re able to enjoy it. Dominos continues to strengthen community relations today through their campaign to fill in local potholes with a fund they’ve created. 

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Back to the physical rebrand though, readability and transcendence across platforms were again 2 motivating factors in the domino rebrand as well. Their original logo is large and clunky, while also difficult to ready because the words are rotated and confined to under half of the original mark. In order to truly have an icon represent their brand, they had to take the word out of the icon itself, and shorten the name to save face. This translates to the Internet much better because their icon or name can now be recognized independently outside of the original logo. Domino’s Pizza chief marketing officer said in a press release, “We’d like to reach the point where we’re recognized as the Nike swoosh or Golden arches”. This adds credibility to the idea that companies are learning from industry leaders and adapting many of their same thought processes throughout their brand adaptation.

Packaging seems like an afterthought in the branding process, when really it should always be in the forefront of the discussion. Dominos knew that their old boxes were unoriginal and bland, so they turned their new logo into their boxes. This helps the new logo get a foothold with Domino’s consumers and also infuses its own bold sense of creativity.

Through self-deprecation and, at times, cringe worthy honesty, dominos has run one of the most successful rebrands of this century. From 2009 to 2017 Dominos more than doubled their revenue and surpassed its competitors in market share, and all they had to do was listen to their consumers. They listened when they were told that their pizza was bad, and they walked the walk by showing their customers how they were going to change and even asking for their help throughout the process.