By now you have probably either read or seen
something about the successful Domino’s Pizza marketing campaign that combined
social media using Facebook with its primary corporate Web site. Lots has been
written explaining how it worked so I’ll quickly summarize.

Domino’s Pizza wanted a way to drive new
customers and decided to use a strategic media channel in Facebook with a
strong Coupon Offer that benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Domino’s Pizza says, “Add $1 or $2 to your next Domin’os order to benefit St.
Jude’s and we will match customer donations up to $250,000 between November 16 – December 31, 2009.
Of course, this is
a wonderful campaign for Domino’s Pizza to run and is NOT in question.

What we’re talking about is the change in brand
marketing strategy that uses a social media to push their promotion. To see the promotion go to www.facebook.com and search for Domino’s
Pizza and you will see the page. Here is the displayed coupon that runs under
the St. Jude offer:

Up unitl recently there has been a guiding social
media principle that says non-promotional content belongs on social media
channels and promotional content belongs on the company’s primary Web site. The
strategy behind these principles is to provide useful information such as tips,
trends, and teasers to drive to to the company’s primary Web site.

Here’s a take of what’s on their Web site:


What Domino’s Pizza did was use a non-profit
initiative to drive traffic to their Web site and that’s the quandry here. Have
they gone too far or is it perfectly fine? One of the questions we have to ask
ourselves is do we want to look at pizza coupons on Facebook and other channels?
What do you think?