Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility

Introduction

In early April 2009, Domino's Pizza learned that the powerful social media, so often used to advertise its marketing capabilities have all chances to be used negatively, among other things. As soon as Domino's Pizza employees posted videos on YouTube itself, doing a nasty thing with the food they prepared for customers resulted in a disaster for the company. Domino's Pizza waited two days, in order to respond to a scathing video, and meanwhile, the video was viewed by nearly 1 million people (Werther, 2010). There were discussions on social media blogs, which added fuel to the situation. Domino's Pizza soon dismissed the two employees involved in the prank, and apologized to customers, although the company suffered irreparable harm. Consistent with New York Times, the consumer brand perception about the company remained negative for a number of days, and online forums continued to review the video, which was redesigned, and re-sent many times (www.nytimes.com).

Discussion

The press and the social media ran rivers of ink and oceans of bytes on the subject of Domino's scandal. It left an unforgettable mark on the company as two of the employees recorded an inappropriate video in the kitchen and posted it on Youtube. It required the company to initiate public relations and CSR activities that can revive the corporate image in the public and stakeholder.

The Scandal

In April 2009, two employees of Domino's Pizza Company in North Carolina, United States, thought it might be funny and fun to record and publish a “prank” while preparing the meal. The video was uploaded on Youtube and automatically became a viral with over a million views days later, becoming a big problem for the company image (Husted, 2010).

How the Company Responded

When the company came to learn of the existence of the video, Domino's immediately identified the same audience such as readers of page "The Consumerist" and users of the network of microblogging, twitter and youtube. Domino's did not have twitter account, so they created a profile on twitter and motivated employees to update their personal accounts. The company recorded and released a video on Youtube where the president of the company apologized as the actions of two individuals could impact the business (Lang, 2011).

How the Company could have Reacted

First, the organization had a very slow reaction at the level of corporate image, which the management had realized. Initially, Domino's hoped that the incident will be ...