Falling like Domino's - another social media wake up call

How many more corporate embarrassments will it take to convince organisations to prepare properly for an employee and social media-fuelled crisis?

The global pizza company Domino's is the latest in a growing line of brands which have suffered serious reputation damage at the hands of employees who are either daft, dangerous or just plain demented.

The latest online debacle features a YouTube video showing employees at one Domino's outlet in the US interfering with customer's food in stomach-churning detail. Cheese up the nose, a sponge used to clean the kitchen squeezed between clenched buttocks - you get the gist...

Apparently Domino's knew about the video for at least a day before it responded - after being alerted by concerned bloggers. It has since responded decisively, posting its own YouTube video featuring CEO Patrick Doyle, launching a Twitter site and beginning legal action against the two employees involved. But is this all too little, too late? I think so and I would argue that in this 24/7 global news era a day is simply too damn slow to get your act together.

So the lesson here is not only for organisations to prepare for such a crisis - to know how, in broad terms, they would respond in hours if not minutes if something damaging appeared on a blog, YouTube or elsewhere. That's crisis management 101. No, it's also to ensure they are monitoring the right web sites (most don't), have in place a strong and clear social media policy (most don't) and a workforce that knows and understands the ground rules (most don't).

Ideally I think organisations should go much further by embracing social media and encouraging employees to contribute to these fast-emerging channels in the right (i.e positive and reputation-enhancing) way. There are some great examples of insightful corporations doing exactly that, from Deloitte with its film festival to Serena Software's Facebook Fridays. Unfortunately blocking access and discouraging employees from using these sites will not work. Employees will post. Full stop.

As for Domino's, I think it's a case of damage limitation now - before it was withdrawn today the video had already had more than one million hits and the story had been covered at length in the mainstream media.

Lee Smith on Apr 16 2009

0 Comments