It's true. Our pizza is rubbish.

In 2009 Domino’s Marketing Director Karen Kaiser was pointed towards some videos uploaded to YouTube that must have given her some sleepless nights.

The videos were leaked recordings from Domino’s internal focus groups used to monitor how consumers felt about their pizza.

They were savage.

“Dominos pizza crust is like cardboard.” ??

“The sauce tastes like ketchup.” ??

“The worst pizza I ever had.” ??

Unfortunately Karen and the rest of the leadership team must have already had trouble sleeping. The company had already lost 15% of its revenue in the previous two years.

But, President Patrick Doyle had an idea to turn things around.

He started by posting printouts of negative reviews around their offices. The employees needed to know.

And then he set about remaking their pizza. The ‘chef’ team worked around the clock to create a better pizza. All their ingredients and suppliers were changed. All of their 9,000 locations had to learn how to cook the new pizza. New and improved delivery boxes were commissioned.

And then the real stroke of genius. They turned this disaster into a win by using these videos in an ad campaign. They admitted their pizza was terrible. But they wanted a second chance. ??

They tracked down unhappy customers and showered them with the new and improved pizza for free. And of course, posted it on social media.

Sales exploded immediately along with their stock. The honesty campaign was a resounding success.

If you move away from the details, what allowed the team at Domino’s to turn things around is that they admitted they had a serious problem.

They didn’t try and cover it up or pretend it wasn’t happening. They were open and transparent with all their stakeholders.

They knew if they changed nothing, nothing would change. So they made a bold and realistic plan.

Even when things are going ok, it can be easy to carry on with the status quo. Margins are decent, volumes are strong, and shop sales are- in most cases- better than ever.

But, with the challenges the fuel industry is going to face in the future you can’t sit around and pretend you don’t have a problem.

Be transparent with your team and maybe even the consumer. You might just reap the rewards. ??