Oh Yes They Did: Domino's New Pizza All About Value Co-Creation

By now we've all seen the Domino's Pizza commercials touting their new pizza recipe. (Here's a four minute version that tells the story in more detail.)

Domino's use of social media, traditional market research, and focus groups to ask customers how they could make a better pizza isn't particularly noteworthy - smart but not extraordinary.

But their willingness to say "we heard you and here's what we're doing about it" is.

Here's why I think it's extraordinary:

• It's risky - while sales have been slumping, what if large numbers of loyal customers don't like the new recipe?
• It's bold - one could argue they had no choice but we've all seen lots of companies ride slumps out all the way to oblivion. They took bold and decisive action
• It's dramatic - wouldn't you love to see video of the board room discussions about this strategy? I'd pay large money to see that. And kudos to the executive who had the courage of his/her convictions to pitch it
• It's a "burn the boats" commitment - they didn't risk brand confusion by introducing a new pizza flavor, they went all in with a new approach
• It's a communications beast - everyone from the top of the organization to the counter at your local Domino's store front must not only embrace the change story, they must be able to speak to it and maintain genuine excitement about it
• It's compelling - one can't help but notice the story and wonder how it will all play out. This may turn out to be a great business management and marketing case study in the not too distant future
• The story has appeal and legs - a search for "Dominos new pizza" returned over 7.3 million results
• It's all about the customer value co-creation - Domino's asked for customer feedback, analyzed it, went back to customers with a potential solution or two or three (there had to be a huge investment in consumer taste tests, no?), took in additional feed back and then bet the farm on the results. They made customers a huge part of the strategy and story. They also hope to have co-created value along the way through new sales growth and giving customers a better product and a feeling of being listened to and truly engaged

You can apply a similar approach in your company. Start with My Third Favorite Question Ever.