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The Digiday Podcast
How Domino’s CMO Kate Trumbull navigates inflation and reviving the brand
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- [00:00]
Kameka McCoy
Foreign.
- [00:10]
Tim Peterson
Welcome to the Digitized by V podcast. My name is Tim Peterson. I'm the executive editor of Video and audio at Digiday Media.
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Kameka McCoy
And I'm Kameka McCoy, senior marketing reporter here at Digiday.
- [00:20]
Tim Peterson
Hey, Kamiko. Happy New Year.
- [00:21]
Kameka McCoy
Happy New Year, indeed. How has the New Year been treating you all? And full of days into it.
- [00:28]
Tim Peterson
Well, I will be at CES the second week of the new year, the week that by the time this episode's out, I will be deep in the throes of Vegas. So this year already feels long.
- [00:43]
Kameka McCoy
I suspect it will continue to do so. You know, I'm in the same boat, not in ces, so Godspeed with you going there. But you'll give our listeners some good, good coverage. I spent all of my breaking handmade bread and reading books, and now I am back in front of a computer screen where we're here to talk about AI cookies and things like this. So welcome back.
- [01:07]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, so much news that we need to cover. Of all the things that have happened over the holidays, all the things that have just happened so far in January, there is the Honey Influencer scandal. Netflix had the Christmas Day NFL games, the TikTok ban or no ban, we'll see how that goes. Net neutrality rules getting struck down or warnings on alcoholic drinks. Google deciding like, yeah, tracking's okay. So a lot that we're going to need to cover. But then we also have our interview this week. Who'd you speak to?
- [01:38]
Kameka McCoy
So this week I spoke to Kate Trumbull, who is EVP and CMO at Domino's. I think what was the most interesting thing of the conversation or the premise of the conversation is at a time when a lot of restaurants are having a hard time keeping up with changing consumer preferences and private equity buyouts, that staying afloat is tough. So I talked to Domino's about how they're doing that. But before we get into that good, good interview, we've got some news topics that you hit on already. The one that I'm most interested in because I cover this is the Influencer scandal. What have you heard?
- [02:13]
Tim Peterson
Yeah. So Megalag, who's a YouTube creator known for investigative videos, published a pretty long video. I think it was, like, right before Christmas, if I'm not mistaken, or right after. But, like, immediately? Well, not immediately, but I think at this point it's gotten more than 14 million views at this point. But basically he looked into. So this brand, Honey, for anyone who's not familiar, is this browser extension owned by PayPal, where if you install it Supposedly you go to a product page and the browser extension will tell you what the best deal for that product will be. I've never used it, but supposedly that's how it works. And Honey does a lot of sponsorships. They sponsor one of the NBA teams, I think, in la, ever since the NBA started putting the sponsor patches on jerseys. I know I've seen Honey on one of the jerseys. I just don't remember which team. But they also have done a lot of deals with top creators. MKBHD, Mr. Beast, the list goes on where they do the usual sponsorships, but also as part of those deals, I guess the, you know, if people install the Honey browser extension and use that to help them purchase products, there's affiliate revenue there. And so the idea was that Honey would be sharing that affiliate revenue with the creators. It's, you know, that's one of the revenue lines for creators. But according to megalag, Honey was not doing that. It was keeping the money for itself, and creators were none the wiser. You've already had, you know, one of the big YouTube creators, Legal Eagle, who's a lawyer, say that he's filing a lawsuit against Honey over this.
- [04:00]
Kameka McCoy
I would say that I'm surprised, but I'm not. Capitalism. But also, I think creators have been fighting that fight for a while. One of the things that we reported on a lot in 2024 is just like how they were really clamping down on their contracts and negotiation processes, just going back and forth with companies to make sure that they were getting paid. So this unfortunately just kind of seems par the course and you hate to see it. But I'm going to shift gears really quickly and talk about one of the big moments over the holidays, which was Netflix streaming a couple of NFL games, or depending on what you're into, the.
- [04:39]
Tim Peterson
Beyonce bowl and seemed to have been pretty successful. One, there weren't any major tech glitches like Netflix ran into with, what was it, the Love island reunion special and then the Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight. So tech wise seemed to work out. You also had Beyonce perform in the halftime show at the second game, so that's always going to help. But average 24 million viewers between the two games, and that's the number of people on average who are watching for any given minute. During Beyonce's halftime show, specifically, it was 27 million. Netflix proved it can drive a pretty big audience on a day when, I know for me, I didn't really watch any of the games because I was with my family. Other people may have been tuning into NBA. So it's not like Netflix had everyone else clear out for its NFL games on that day.
- [05:32]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, I did tune in to the Beyonce Bowl. I can't imagine who'd be in trouble if there were glitches. Well, Beyonce was on that screen. That Beehive would come after them. But I do think it's interesting that Netflix is really positioning itself as live sports, live entertainment.
- [05:48]
Tim Peterson
And it's funny, because they used to make such a strong point about, like, they're not being interested in live sports. They used to get the question all the time, Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings, when Reed Hastings was CEO, about, is Netflix going to bid for NBA rights? Is it going to bid for NFL rights? When those were coming up and they kept saying, no, that's not really our bag. Well, it is very much their bag, because they not only had these Christmas Day NFL games, they also just secured exclusive streaming rights to the next two Women's World Cups.
- [06:18]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah. Which I'm sure there are ad dollars to follow there, given that women's sports and just football or soccer, depending on where you're from, has become such a phenomenon in terms of, like, viewership and things like that. So, yeah, I'm sure there's more. More ad dollars to follow.
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Tim Peterson
Yeah. Well, especially if ad dollars start freeing up, if TikTok ends up getting banned.
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Kameka McCoy
In the U.S. yeah, I know that there's been conversations from Trump about wanting to delay or pause that. Now, who's to say if it's because it helped, you know, him. Him win the election with, you know, information and things like that? That is his. His hypothesis, his theory. It's. I don't know, it might be true, but hence him stepping in, being like, hey, now, let's not get so hasty after. Wasn't he the one that wanted to ban it originally?
- [07:11]
Tim Peterson
Oh, yeah, that was the big thing. August 2020. I reverse reports.
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Kameka McCoy
Quick about face. But, yeah, there's. I think what's most interesting is that nobody seems to be taking this seriously. Everyone that I've talked to said it's business as usual. And I've read that TikTok plans to be at CES just days away from that ban.
- [07:34]
Tim Peterson
Yeah. Although TikTok. Yeah. Because there was the Wall Street Journal story about advertisers and creators kind of being like, I'll believe it when I see it about this ban. But then the information had a story where TikTok does seem to be taking this very seriously now, where it's offering to refund money to advertisers. If it does end up getting banned this year. So, yeah, it feels like everyone else isn't taking it seriously. So seriously. But as that January 19 deadline gets closer, TikTok is.
- [08:04]
Kameka McCoy
Now, I know we've got one other aspect or two other aspects, but the next aspect of the Internet happening is net neutrality, which I feel like this all kind of feeds together in one big hellscape. It was a big topic a couple years ago. It has come up once again now that the appeals court has struck down net neutrality rules. Great.
- [08:24]
Tim Peterson
Yep. Yeah, yeah. So we'll see what exactly that opens up, because it was also a big topic. I think, like, 2014 may have been, like, when it first popped onto my radar. I think that was when Comcast, maybe, or like one of the Internet providers was trying to get the net neutrality rules taken down because Obama had introduced them, then Trump took them down in his first term, and then Biden said, nope, we're going to bring back these net neutrality rules. And now, right on the eve of Trump coming back into office, an appeals court has struck down these net neutrality rules, which could be really impactful when it comes to the Internet economy. Because what this means is a Comcast, a charter, any Internet provider would be allowed to throttle or block traffic to any website, streaming service, any destination. They could also use these net neutrality rules to say, hey, Netflix, YouTube, we're piping a lot of data to your platforms because these are video platforms. You're going to need to start paying us for this. In which case YouTube may be facing a pretty big bill and say, all right, folks, it was nice while this was free for a while, but we're not making enough money to cover this bill from Comcast Charter Altice down the line, we're going to now start fully charging everyone. Or if Comcast says Netflix, we're going to have to charge you. Or, hey, Comcast Internet subscribers, we're not going to be able to Deliver Netflix in 4K to you anymore. But if you just so happen to be a peacock subscriber, that's going to be 4K, no problem. Because, hey, we own that. We're not going to charge our own streaming service for this. So also, nothing could come of this.
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Kameka McCoy
But, yeah, it could be nothing, but it also could impact what you watch, where you watch it and how much you pay to watch it.
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Tim Peterson
Yeah, well, and especially when you think of all the data that's getting piped over the Internet going forward between AI with all the large language models and all the data that needs to be processed There and then if and when the metaverse ever becomes a thing. If that's a lot of data. Gaming companies even short of that, with so many games being available, like to be streamed or to be downloaded, like, you know, Fortnite for one, Epic games can be facing a big bill.
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Kameka McCoy
Yeah. And like you said, that's a really stark contrast. It could be nothing, but it also could be a hell of a lot of something.
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Tim Peterson
Yeah. Could be a lot of money at stake also. Another area where there seems like there could be a lot of money at stake is just today on the day we're recording this January 3rd, US Surgeon General has said there should be cancer warnings on alcoholic drinks, which isn't going so far as to saying, like, alcoholic drinks should be banned or regulated to the point of tobacco. But that's a big thing and would mean a lot for, I mean, alcohol advertisers account for a lot of ad spending.
- [11:36]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, it would be. And this ties into a greater narrative because you've also got it on the table. Pharmaceutical ads with the. Is it a nomination of RFK for. From Trump? Yep.
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Tim Peterson
Yeah. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Kameka McCoy
Yes. In the Make America Healthy Again movement, which kind of ties into that. So, you know, I mean, on the lighter side of it, you've got an increase of like mocktails and dry January, things like that. But to a darker side of it, you've got that growing movement to kind of ban that, which, you know, I would imagine would mean you've got some marketers behind. Those brands are going to have to get real crafty. Should that be the case.
- [12:15]
Tim Peterson
Yeah. And I mean, there could be, it's weird to say silver lining anytime cancer's part of the conversation, but it could press those brands to have to, you know, market their products differently or to try to like, make a case for the safety or responsible consumption of their products so that it's not just like, oh, there's these cancer labels and people just stop drinking. It's similar to. This is a ridiculous callback. But I think at some point last year I like binged through Mad Men and at one point they had a cigarette brand as like the client. This is all fictional show, but there was like a storyline about needing to create campaigns to make cigarettes seem safe when they were getting regulated in a different way than they had before. Maybe something similar happens with these alcohol brands which would create more money, at least for the near term, in the market for TV network streaming services. Everyone.
- [13:24]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, obviously we can't end this conversation without talking about third party cookies. I feel like if that were, if that were a drinking game, good lord, none of us would be well. But we've got talk of fingerprinting and that's been given a pass. Talk a little about that.
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Tim Peterson
Yeah, I mean in our year in review episodes and then our year end preview episode with Sarah Durdy and Seb Joseph, our Executive editor of news and Managing editor. Well, Sarah Jordy Managing Editor SEB Joseph Executive Editor of News we talked about how we aren't able to leave third party cookies in 2024 and not only are third party cookies still around in 2025, but Google is now giving a pass to other tracking mechanisms right before the holidays. Nice little pre holiday news dump. Google said actually fingerprinting, cool. We're going to keep going with that. IP addresses used for tracking people. That's cool. Fingerprinting is basically taking a bunch of different disparate pieces of information about a person and cobbling that together to guess at. Okay, this based on this IP address, what browser version this person's using? Geolocation. We know this device belongs to Kimiko, right? And so we're going to target Kimiko and there's nothing you can do about all of that because this is piecing together information that just gets naturally passed and you, so you have no real control over these things. The only hope you would have is that companies like Google, like Apple, Apple has said it's blocking fingerprinting, do things to obscure that information so that someone couldn't get that information and say, okay, I know this is Kimiko Google saying, nah, this is fine. It is what it is. Which are basically the connected TV version of the cookie. And those have been. I've written way too many stories about like the privacy risks of IP addresses and the privacy concerns that the use of IP address for targeting and tracking.
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Kameka McCoy
But that doesn't, I mean introduce. There are naysayers. No, as in the uk Yeah, I.
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Tim Peterson
Mean so the UK Information Commissioner's office read Google's blog post and they said, nah, we don't, we do not like this at all. To what extent that will end up meaning much of anything we'll have to see because obviously the ICO as well as the Competition Markets Authority in the UK the CMA also had things to say about Google's decision to eliminate third party cookies or what it was going to do with the privacy sandbox. Nothing has come yet of that third party. Google reversed that decision. So yeah, it's basically just as if the past now five years of these kind of anti Tracking moves and moves to eliminate things like third party cookies like IP address to create a more privacy friendly Internet. Economy has just been wiped. It's like the, the Thanos snap. It's just that was the blip. We're going to just reset to 2019.
- [16:51]
Kameka McCoy
Obviously there's a lot that's still what a, what a way to start the year. We'll see. Obviously, you know there's going to be a lot of coverage that comes, that comes out of this and thankfully that you have me and Tim to keep you guys abreast. With that said, our guest this week, like I said, is Kate Trumbull, EVP and CMO of Domino's Pizza. Restaurant. Trains right now are struggling to try to keep afloat and keep themselves in the cultural zeitgeist. I talked to Kate about how Domino's has been able to do that by offering free pizza regularly without putting too much of a dent in their budget and kind of, you know, maybe what other brands can learn from that?
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Tim Peterson
They still charge way too much for toppings. I, I go to Domino's. I got Domino's over the holiday break. I had a free pizza and like a free large pizza to use. I wanted three toppings on there. I wanted ham, pineapple and I wanted garlic and I wanted extra cheese. That it was, that pizza was gonna cost me $13. Sure.
- [17:52]
Kameka McCoy
I'm actually more concerned about you being a ham and pineapple person.
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Tim Peterson
Oh, I love Hawaiian pizza. I will. That is a hill I will die on.
- [18:00]
Kameka McCoy
Jesus. Well, next time I talk to Kate, I'll be sure to address that fantastic.
- [18:13]
Kate Trumbull
Foreign.
- [18:18]
Tim Peterson
Discover Digiday Streaming and Video Awards, formerly the Digiday Video and TV Awards and its new categories including Best Interactive Video Experience, Best Sustainable Production Initiative and more. Recognize your team's hard work in modernizing streaming and video through your company campaigns and technology. Learn more about this program and discover more of this year's categories and past winning campaigns from PlayStation, Roku and others@digiday.com DSVA.
- [18:51]
Kameka McCoy
Hello. Hello Kate and welcome to the Digiday podcast. We're so excited to have you. How are you?
- [18:56]
Kate Trumbull
I'm doing great. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [18:59]
Kameka McCoy
Fantastic. I like to start all of these conversations with a fun question and given that you guys are pizza people, it'll be a pizza related question. That.
- [19:09]
Kate Trumbull
Cool. Sounds good. Yeah.
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Kameka McCoy
Let's go. I'm gonna go with the obvious and ask what is your favorite pizza topping?
- [19:18]
Kate Trumbull
Oh, it's hard to pick just one topping, but my go to you know, nine out of ten times is pepperoni. You gotta have pepperoni.
- [19:28]
Kameka McCoy
You see, I am a meat lover's girl. And it only wavers between that and cheese. There's no in between. So people either love ordering with me or they hate ordering with me.
- [19:39]
Kate Trumbull
The beauty of pizza, you can do half and half and make it exactly what you want.
- [19:44]
Kameka McCoy
Exactly. Exactly. Well, we'll get straight to it. I'm very excited to talk to you this morning. Domino's is one of the largest pizza chains and most recognizable. And I think what's so interesting is that you guys have had, I want to say, the brand playbook for brand revamp moments and big brand moments. Right. Including the one that we'll talk today about, the emergency pizza campaign and kind of how you guys have been able to do that for 60 plus years.
- [20:12]
Kate Trumbull
It's hard to believe.
- [20:14]
Kameka McCoy
So talk to me a little bit about 2024. How did that pan out? No pun intended for Domino's Pizza. The last financial report said that Domino's saw significant growth for the fourth straight quarter. Meanwhile, prices have been going up across the food sector and people have been griping about it. So how did Domino's weather all of that?
- [20:35]
Kate Trumbull
It was challenging. I think if you look at what's happening in the industry this year, a lot of QSRs, most of QSR is down in traffic. And a lot of that is driven by pressure consumers are feeling by pricing that's been taken over the last few years coming out of COVID with labor and food costs going way up. I think that what has helped Domino's stay positive in order count and really drive momentum is we've leaned into our new strategy. This hungry for more strategy. Hungry for more. We love acronyms at Domino's. More stands for most delicious food. Operational excellence is the O, Renowned value is the R. And enhanced by best in class franchisees and team members is the E. When I think about what's really helped us drive growth in the last several quarters is that we've leaned into most delicious food and we've leaned into renowned value. And there's a lot of examples of it. I'll give you just a few here. We launched our New York style pizza, which happens to also be my favorite pizza crust. Right. With pepperoni, of course. But we launched that new product this year, which is one of our most delicious and it's so high quality. We also launched five cheese Mac and cheese, which is another very delicious side. At the same time, we've been driving great renowned value through emergency pizza that we launched actually for the first time end of last year and other really great campaigns. You know, u tip we tip was an example of really trying to come at value and lean into a cultural tip tension where people are having a lot of fatigue around tipping. So at a high level, I think that we have the right strategy and we've been leaning into it and that's, that's really helped us be successful.
- [22:33]
Kameka McCoy
I think 2024, all the things that we talked about, that's a lot, you know, for, for a company to handle and you guys work with franchisees and whatnot, you got to get buy in for these marketing strategies. So talk a little bit about, you know, how throughout 2024 you guys went about that for these brand marketing moments.
- [22:51]
Kate Trumbull
One of the things I think is a competitive advantage at Domino's is we really do have the best franchisees. So many of them have been in the system. You said we, you know, we're over 60 years old and a lot of these franchisees, this has been their life. You know, they came in in their teens, their early 20s and they've built their, their businesses and they've sent their kids to college based on the entrepreneurship in this business. And I always love to just throw in there. 90 plus percent of our franchisees started as delivery drivers or QSRs, answering phones. And that's really unique in the industry. We're very protective. You have to work in our stores. But they know the business, they love the business and we bring them along for everything we do. We have a franchise board, a really diverse across the country, franchisees with a lot of stores, franchisees with just a few. And we bring them along for the vision of what we think is right to deliver on more most delicious food and renowned value. We bring a business case to them and sometimes we do small test and learns to get the right data. But all of that comes together to build the trust and you know, we tell them what we think these, these ideas are going to deliver for their business and then we come back and tell them that, that hey, it did it or maybe it didn't. But most times we're pretty spot on. We're really data driven. We have an incredible analytics and insights team. So it's just communication and partnership and you know, and a lot of times frankly they make our ideas bigger and better. And that's, that's the fun of it too.
- [24:31]
Kameka McCoy
I think one of the things about coming into a new year is that in hindsight's 20 20, right, you get to look back at the last year and kind of get those learning points and whatnot. Walk me through. You know, as dominoes, what were some of the challenges in 2024 and how does that sign us up for. Excuse me, set us up for 2025 learnings and things like this?
- [24:50]
Kate Trumbull
Yeah, I mean, I think the headwinds that anyone in QSR and pizza would tell you this year is consumers being pressured. And, you know, they're not. They're not able to. They don't have as much money, so they aren't taking as many trips to eat out. They're cooking at home. They're really being really, really, you know, smart about how they spend dollars. So I think, you know, this year, all of us had to learn how do you lean into the things that are gonna get attention, breakthrough and drive consumers to select your brand when they're not going to as many QSR brands? So I'd say the things we learned, you know, we revamped our loyalty program in 2023, and it was really simple. We built a program many, many years ago, back in 2015, over eight years old. And we came back and made the program so that instead of ordering six times, you only have to order two times to get something for free. And so we have these great free tiers. We also made it so that our carryout customers who maybe spend less can get points on their orders of $5 or more. So we just made the program better for consumers. And I think it also now is a platform for us to take those great product moments like New York style and Mac and cheese. And we have perks that are connected to our Domino's rewards program that just kind of create this amazing flywheel of delicious product trial, but better value. And it gives some new news to ensure consumers are always thinking of Domino's and that we're top of mind. So at the end of the day, I think the learning for everyone this year was you got to play in value. That's what's important to consumers. And as much as you can bring them targeted things and offers products that.
- [26:46]
Kameka McCoy
Are most relevant to them, Domino's is not new to this space by any means. What we're seeing right now across the industry, especially with the fast food and QSR brands, is that they're having or not even just them. You can really run the gamut here about having to reinvent themselves to keep up with shifting consumer demands and also compete with newer entrants to the space. But like I said, Domino's has a long history here with big Brand moments dating all the way back to the 30 minutes or less pizza, and then also today to the emergency pizza. So talk to me a little bit about those big brand moments and how Domino's determines its time. You know, what are kind of the signals that flick at that?
- [27:26]
Kate Trumbull
Oh, that's a great question. I'll try to unpack some of it. I think. When I think yes. Yeah. 30 minute guarantee many, many decades ago was an important moment for us. I really think about in terms of our brand sort of turnaround revolution. It started in 2010 and we call it the pizza turnaround. We changed our core recipe. We really literally launched a new and improved pizza. From the crust up, it was literally the cheese, the sauce, the crust, what went on the crust, our garlic oil blend. And we came out and we acknowledged that our pizza sucked. We said it tasted like cardboard. We showed what consumers were saying. It was really heartbreaking at the time. But I think what was so powerful about that moment is you also had to look at what was happening in culture at the time and consumers. There was such mistrust of businesses and the financial institutions. And so for a pizza company to come, and instead of running and hiding and pretending the criticism wasn't real, which is what was happening in the world, we faced it head on and we vowed to make our pizza better. And we were so confident. You know, we said, please, you know, give it a try and we'll give you your money back if it's not better to you. And I think that honesty and transparency is really what broke through and made that such a huge success and really led to our turnaround. And that's gotten to us where we helped us get to where we are now. But we've now had an evolution over time where there have been other key moments that I think leaned into what works so well about the turnaround. And, you know, we can go deep on some of those. I think paving for pizza is one that always comes up. And, you know, I feel like. And emergency pizza, which I hope we get to talk to today, but that ability to lean into transparency, to listen to consumers, to resolve real cultural tensions out in the world, and then always being action based, kind of, that's been the recipe for success for us. And doing these things that no one sees coming that are so unexpected for a pizza company to do.
- [29:41]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, let's actually lean into emergency pizza. Right. It's been a big project of you guys. The Wall Street Journal did a big story on it and said that it took two years for this to Come together, which is a long time to be planning a campaign. So kind of walk me through how something of that size comes together. You spearheaded it, but who were the key players and kind of what was involved? And again, how do you get franchise, franchisees involved? A big, big question.
- [30:09]
Kate Trumbull
It is a. So yeah, I could. There's not enough time to mention everyone that was involved. And I just think, you know, you have a core of an idea that came from our agency. Work, work in progress. And honestly, the idea was to give everyone in the country 340plus million people free pizza. But if you do that math, we'd be bankrupt. So we can't. We like, you know, of course the agency had this really aspirational, you know, cool provocation. And then in partnership with our marketing team, we really figured out like, how could we do this? How could we give a free pizza to everyone and make the math math, as people like to say. And so partnering with our agency, our marketing team are finance and accounting and tax and then of course, franchisees. And I think what's so fun is that as the idea kept gaining traction and we knew consumers were under such financial stress, we knew that we had to do something that would show that we had their backs and we were there for them and we were listening. And then it's one of those things that then you start to bring franchisees into the fold. And originally we thought this was going to be a carryout only campaign. And we sat in New York with our franchise board that I was mentioning before and art her toe, one of our great franchisees was like, guys, why aren't you doing this for delivery and carryout? This is so big, you know, let's go as big as we can go. And that's what the, you know, that's the beauty of the partnership is things get bigger and better. And so we partnered with IT and with our innovation team, we had to make sure the fraud pieces were in place. Because if you're giving away free pizza, that's a real big value to consumers. Right? Like any, you know, whether it's 15 bucks roughly, like that matters. And so people will do all kinds of crazy things to get that kind of value. So all of that came together and I think we created some really breathtaking marketing. I think in the wallet that consumers have in our app and on mobile, responsive web, essentially there's a break the glass kind of key visual and when you redeem your pizza, the glass breaks. And it's just a very, just every element of that campaign was unique and meaningful. Even the packaging, I don't know if it's up here in my office. We have an emergency pizza. The big red packaging, it was just so ubiquitous. And so it was a great campaign, you know, and we, the advertising really came down to like, you know, we're going to give you a free pizza when you need it most. Whether it's, you know, you burnt your dinner, your in laws showed up when you least expected it. Whatever the situation, we wanted to save the day or save dinner at the end of the day. It's just a bogo, right? It's just a buy one, get one free which has been around for the ages. And so that's where we talk about renowned value. How do you take something that is so simple but it's grounded in an insight, it has an amazing creative wrapper and then it gets elevated to actually renown value and talk value and suddenly you're on all the late night shows and you're Getting billions over 2 billion earned media impressions and really reaching consumers in a new way. It's hard to copy that kind of thing, you know, and it was so popular that, you know, we had to bring it back in 2024.
- [33:43]
Kameka McCoy
I was just about to say for, for a generation that is very much about quick, fast now, right? Two years is a while to be building out a campaign. So talk to me a little bit about, I guess what for all of that time and all of those people spent kind of what were the payoffs that were expected? What were the dividends that this campaign was expected to deliver?
- [34:09]
Kate Trumbull
Well, we were, I'd say, strategic in wanting to launch this campaign right after we launched our new loyalty program because we really felt like this. A free pizza was one of the greatest incentives and reasons to come to us. A loyalty program seems to attract people who are already loyal to you. Right. Because it's a lot to ask someone to give your information. And you're going to join loyalty programs when you think you're going to come back many times. And so the free pizza was really the carrot. And so that was one of the big opportunities was adding loyalty members. And we added 2 million additional active members to our loyalty program in Q4 2023, largely due to the program and you know, because you had to sign up for Domino's Rewards to get this benefit to get your emergency pizza, it also was really powerful in activating our lower frequency consumers and to bring in new users. I mean, when you're a 60 year old brand and you're huge and we have over, you know, 30 million active loyalty members. You constantly have to fill the funnel. You constantly have to fill the funnel. So that was. And so bringing those customers in the purchase flywheel was great for long term business. And the beauty is they didn't just come in for the free pizza and go. What we saw as they came in for their free pizza, our loyalty program was so much better and rewarded consumers much more quickly. And so it kept them, it kept them with us. And so that was. Those were some of the things really the acquisition and loyalty enrollments were and driving orders and brand love. Those were all objectives of the campaign.
- [35:50]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, I'm going to double back here and ask about again, challenges in this space because one, it's something that takes a while to come together and then two, you know, we had to account for fraudulent activity for those free pieces and whatnot. So talk to me about those challenges and kind of again, how that set us up for the reiteration of that campaign.
- [36:12]
Kate Trumbull
Yeah, I mean, it took us two years. We knew we had to do it, but we wanted to get it right. And again, you're looking at all the things that are coming through your innovation pipeline and where do they fit? So again, it made sense to kind of wait and do it right after loyalty. But there were things that didn't that we learned from in the first iteration. And I think one of them was this loophole in the program that briefly allowed, briefly allowed the coupon to be shared, which is a scary thing when you have 7,000 stores across the country because once a coupon like that goes out, it gets shared on communities, social in like instance. Fortunately, our IT team is amazing and they have lots of monitoring in place and you know, we were able to handle that very quickly. But it wasn't before. Some of our stores had a huge rush of consumers and they didn't see it coming. So you never want to do that to your operational partners. But we had really great quick communication. We shut it down quickly and then it was about how do we ensure this doesn't happen again. And so as we built Emergency Pizza 2.0, that was top of mind to make sure we had even heightened monitoring and protocols so this would not happen again. And that, that was probably the biggest, the biggest challenge we, we faced and we call it 1.0.
- [37:42]
Kameka McCoy
I want to zoom out because one of the things that I talked about at the top of this conversation is kind of this brand revamp playbook that Domino seems to have. Right. It seems like every once in a while it gets Dusted off and set into motion when signals say, hey, we need a revamp. So talk to me a little bit about that playbook and those turnaround moments. Kind of what does that playbook look like for Domino's? What are the key strategies in that type of deal?
- [38:05]
Kate Trumbull
You know, I don't know that I hear you calling it a revamp. I think, like, we just have our strategy and we find the moments where we, we want to keep leaning in. And historically we've called them, oh yes, we did. Moments where we're trying to get do something so over the top that people would say, wait a second, did a pizza company just pave roads? Like, really, did that happen? And if we're honest with ourselves, those are hard to do all the time. You can't do five of those a year because usually they take a tremendous amount of work and alignment. And if you're doing things like that all the time, I guess they're not as surprising. But I think they come down to doing things that, you know, often being inspired outside of your category, but doing some things that are just unexpected, really listening to consumers so, you know, what is happening, what's the cultural zeitgeist? And. And then looking to see how Domino's can you uniquely resolve them with the hero, which is pizza. Like, pizza is our superpower. Pizza is the greatest food on earth. It brings people together. It is a celebration food. It is a consolation food. In good and bad times, people will turn to pizza to brighten their moods and really for that connection that comes with it. So I think again, we're listening. We're driving uncommon honesty and transparency and we're taking actions. So you're going to see those. You've come to expect it, and we have a high bar to want to continue to drive those in the future.
- [39:47]
Kameka McCoy
Talk to me about the importance of having those oh, yes. Moments. Right. One of the things that I think is important to note is kind of like where the QSR food and fast food industry sits right now, where you still got going into the new year, price conscious consumers and economic headwinds. Right. And I'm assuming that there are going to be other brands that are going to look to a Domino's like playbook to do those oh yes moments. So talk about the importance of kind of having that playbook for those OES moments.
- [40:16]
Kate Trumbull
Yeah. I think that you see a lot of brands in QSR when value became so critical this year, they ran to like, how do I get the lowest price in front of customers to attract them but the challenge and risk with that is A, devaluing your product, but B, everyone's doing the same thing. If everyone's running a $5 special, then how do you stand out? You don't stand out. So for us, the. Oh, yes, we did. Is trying to do things that, yes, deliver value, but they do it in a way that breaks through that clutter and also feels very ownable to Domino's and builds brand loyalty and love, but drives orders. And I think we've had several of those this year. I mentioned you tip, we tip. Everyone's tired of tipping. So we came out and we said, we're going to tip you when you tip your driver, which, again, we want to encourage people to tip their drivers who work really hard, who actually do work and drive to their house and deliver to them. We're going to tip you back $3. So we're going to give you value. And that was one example. Leaning into cultural tension. I think moreflation was something we did this year where it felt like everywhere you turned, shrinkflation was happening. You go to the grocery store and you're like, why are there so few chips in my bag? Right. And you go to restaurants and you're like, how did I remember that? The portion was much bigger before. And, you know, all this pressure on brands and companies, there's a lot of ways you can go. Some companies just give you less. And so we said, okay, we're going to take our most popular offer, our mix and match, two or more for 6.99 each. And we're going to actually. And that's medium pizzas. We're just going to make one of them a large. And we're not going to charge you anything for it.
- [42:06]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah.
- [42:06]
Kate Trumbull
So while others are giving you less and giving you, you know, Domino's is actually just going to give you more. And so it's really trying to take a. A fresh look and a fresh take on value that is unexpected and that will break through the clutter where.
- [42:25]
Kameka McCoy
Because a lot of these campaigns for dominoes seem really specific. Right. Like very on brand with Domino's, but also having listened culturally to people. So where do you. Where do you get those cultural signals to be able to say, hey, tipping is something that people are concerned about. How do we go incorporate that into Domino's strategy?
- [42:49]
Kate Trumbull
Yeah, I mean, there's the obvious. Everyone in our agency and everyone on our teams. You know, we're. We're listening to media. We're on social media. We're seeing the memes. You Couldn't escape the memes on tipping people. You could see the one where they're in the elevator and it's like, tip me for hitting your floor. And all of that was so funny. But it was also just as consumers ourselves, just frustrating for people. And so we knew there was something there. I think it's research. We're constantly talking to consumers. You have to be. You have to hear what they're saying. And then there's social listening and just having agencies and team members that are so passionate about this business that they're always looking for what's the next thing. How do we do something that shows that we get consumers and we're there for them and. Because that's just kind of the bar that we've set for, we've proved. Because once you do those things, people in the organization love it. They love it, they get it, they believe in the idea, and they move faster. It just starts to become this thing that everyone wants to keep doing.
- [44:02]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah. One of the themes that I noticed with Domino's is there's either, well, there's always free pizza involved. Right. So. So how do we incorporate that? And as you said, kind of make the math math so that we're not taking a loss.
- [44:17]
Kate Trumbull
You know, sometimes it's free pizza, sometimes it's a $3 tip. When you do the work of carrying out, I don't know if you remember our carry out tips campaign. That was a really fun one. You know, when no one could get drivers, we're like, we're going to say thank you and tip you for being the driver, but you do the work. And frankly, with emergency pizza, how we evolved it from everyone getting a free pizza on their order was you have to order from us, and then we'll give you your emergency pizza, and you have 30 days to use it. And so at the end of the day, we're getting an order from a consumer. And as a lot of new consumers come in, that's incremental. And you also want to do the math and modeling on how long how many of those customers are going to come back and then what's their lifetime value. So you can do all the research in the world. You don't really ever know exactly how consumers are going to react. But because we've done so many campaigns like this in the past, we've gotten pretty good at knowing what to expect and knowing the levers we can pull to increase. You know, we always talk about incrementality because that's what matters in an industry. In A category which was pretty decent frequency. It's about bringing new customers in, having current customers order more frequently and just that's. Those are incremental orders you wouldn't have had otherwise if you hadn't done the action.
- [45:42]
Kameka McCoy
Absolutely, absolutely. Again, on the topic of a new year. Right?
- [45:47]
Kate Trumbull
Yeah.
- [45:47]
Kameka McCoy
Talk to me a little bit about what's on tap to keep Domino's in the top 10 fast food QSR brands, especially when introducing to a new generation of consumers. Not even just Gen Z. Right. They're like in the workforce now. Gen Alpha is also on the cusp. So talk a little bit about what's on tap. I know we've got a new mascot, new products, those type of things.
- [46:08]
Kate Trumbull
Yeah, yeah, I, you know, we talked about more so on the most delicious food. We're going to keep bringing new product innovation. That is what we know matters to our target. And we know that the more delicious new products we bring, the more association we have with delicious and then our food photography, you know, we're working digitally and socially like working with influencers and you know, those who are, you know, in the, in the food industry and culinary like that have a passion they're following, has a passion being able to show Domino's because the product itself is so good. We know we have the best food in the industry. How do we just make sure it's showing up and, you know, new items are coming through that people are excited about trying? I mean, again, we're just going to keep driving renowned value in new ways that no one, no one necessarily sees coming. We are in this journey as part of our renowned value pillar. We know we need to win even more with, like you said, Gen Z and Alpha and that's future proofing our brand. And so there's been a lot of things we've been up to. We just in 2024 launched Mac and Cheese towards the end of the year and we came with a new mascot, which is a big deal. Brands don't add new mascots very often and the reason we did that is we knew that that is a way for, you know, in TikTok and Instagram, on our social snap, for us to really break through and connect with the Gen Z audience. And we know unhinged content works really hard for us. So what was interesting about this choice is we launched five Cheese Mac and Cheese. It's incredibly delicious, by the way. And you can add bacon, you can add jalapeno, it's really customizable that way. But it's not a traditional Mac and cheese. Right. It doesn't have what you might call the kind of pasta you would expect from a Mac and cheese. It's actually made with penne. And so, you know, our Mac and cheese is so fun and sort of unconventional. We knew we needed a social campaign that was also unconventional. And that's where Max Scott came from. Max Scott is our fun loving. He's rebellious. He's a penny noodle if you haven't seen him, on a mission to shake things up. And so we really had a lot of fun with the storytelling of the machumentary. Like, where did he come from? Why does he exist? Why is he. He can't talk, but why is he frustrated? Why is he breaking all the rules? Well, our Mac and cheese broke all the rules and it almost felt like an office type theme. And the content just came through really funny. We had so many other brands jumping in on the conversation in a way we hadn't had before. And so that was one way that we're just showing up and taking more risk in these different channels and not being afraid to fail and leaning in with. We have a collective of influencers, the Domino's collective, that just. They get us. They already love Domino's before we ever worked with them. And they're really helping us tell stories that again, the food is at the center.
- [49:21]
Kameka McCoy
Absolutely. One last question. Now that we're talking about the mascot and unhinged content. Right. That's something that people love. But there, I would imagine have to be some type of parameters for unhinged content as to not step on anybody's toes. So what do the parameters look like for. For you guys? Noodle mascot?
- [49:42]
Kate Trumbull
Well, well, you know, like I said, you really think hard about bringing a mascot. You know, we had. I wouldn't call it a mascot, but we had the noid in the 1980s who is a nemesis of Domino's and was always trying to get in the way of things. But it's a really powerful device. But you have to think about like, you know, how long are we. How long will Mac be around? What is Mac's role? And. Yeah, and what's on brand and ultimately what they're doing, what does that signal about our brand and what is it? Does it ladder ultimately to our overall strategy and our obsession with delicious pizza? And so you go through that process internally and with your agency. And then we do a lot of post mortems and looking at how things went and how we will evolve from there. But the last few years, every brand has had their own journey of how do we get into TikTok and be relevant? Because what used to work in advertising does not work. And you know, I think you have to take risks and you, you learn as you go to, to find where that balance is.
- [50:57]
Kameka McCoy
Spaghetti noodles at the wall. Yeah, well. Or penne noodles at the wall.
- [51:02]
Kate Trumbull
Throwing penne noodles at the wall. And there's no more matching luggage. Like, I feel like marketing 20 years ago. You can't, you can't have a different approach on TikTok. You have to. It's just the reality now.
- [51:15]
Kameka McCoy
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we will see you guys brand playbook continue to play out. Thank you so much for stopping by the podcast, Kate. It's been a fun conversation.
- [51:24]
Kate Trumbull
Amazing. Thanks so much for having me.
- [51:33]
Kameka McCoy
Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of the Digiday Podcast. Thank you to everyone for listening. And please don't forget to share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it. You can even rate us and leave us a comment on Apple podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Digiday Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.