Luckily my mum is an avid reader of The Daily Telegraph and she alerted me to this story about Domino's Pizza stopping its trial of a Halal-only menu in 3 stores due to poor sales
The chain enraged customers 18 months ago by completely removing pork from its pizzas in favour of halal-only meat at its branch in Hall Green, Birmingham.......Read the article here
For what it's worth, I am not surprised at the poor sales, and commend Domino's (and it's franchisees) for their bravery in both starting the trial in the first place and in stopping it when it became evident that it was not a commercial success.
Companies should engender a culture of not being afraid to make mistakes, as only by learning from them do you become better and stronger in the long run.
History is littered with examples of companies and their mistakes like the Ford Edsel, New Coke, The Oreo Dessert Pizza, McDonald's Hulaburger and the Sony Betamax.
Yet the companies behind these are all among the most successful in the World, because they were not afraid of failure and knew how to deal with it when they encountered it.
Indeed, the enormously successful Domino's Chocolate Lavacake was born out of the failures of the Oreo pizza, which identified a market for a dessert pizza and the comical Fudgems. Who can forget the advert where the little girl looks like she has just been covered in poo by the supposedly adorable Fudgem?
So instead of quietly chortling at Domino's Halal "mistake", we should be praising them for their bravery in pushing boundaries and exploring new marketing opportunities.
Who knows, people one day may look back and laugh at those unbelievers who can see no future for Oven-baked Subs which have been launched to a fanfare of publicity as the latest menu's headline product and supported by hundreds of thousands of pounds of Franchisees Marketing Fund Contributions. Or maybe they won't!
Personally I hope they're a huge success and prove to be the final nail in Subway's coffin (to quote a Domino's Senior manager).
What do you think?
2 comments:
Wow, John Cleese is writing for Pizzas and Stuff - Awesome.
It is our aim to have plenty of guest contributors, Ollie. John is a very shy man and asked not to be credited with that post, so please can you remove your comment ;-)
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