Social communication

Domino’s Pizza has gotten themselves into a lot of trouble thanks to one of their employees. What’s interesting is the fact that they’ve ended up there even though they’ve done their homework on online presence. What’s lacking is obviously enough brand fans.

ReadWriteWeb reports on a video broadcast by two of Domino’s employees. The video that among other things, features an employee who farts and sneezes on a sandwich, was viewed over 500,000 times. RWW writes that Domino’s were quite fast to publish the response (below) to the video where they of course are explaining how something like this could happen – but is it enough?

This is only the beginning. As technology becomes easier to use brands will face industrial sabotage like this every week. The problem tomorrow or obviously already today is the fact that one single employee or competitor for that sake can do a lot of harm…A LOT OF HARM.

In order for companies to stand future attacks, brand communication becomes more important than ever since it’s the only protection they’ll have once something like this happens. Brand communication is the one thing that turns us into loyal and long term brand fans and therefore also gatekeepers.
Brand fans = drones. (Star Wars rock’s, doesn’t it?)

Imagine if Domino’s Pizza would have had a couple of million brand fans only waiting to be called into war. The fans would have killed the employee video with comments and created related videos. Once the official response above was published fans would instantly have created a viral spread of the video. Blogs would have been swarmed and Microblogs would have been buzzed until nothing stood in Domino’s way…

If you’re a brand owner. Start thinking. What can your brand really do for your customers. What can you give away. How can you make your brand fans loyal. And how can you gather their contact details so that you can direct them straight into the war zone? Start building walls, tanks, guns, jet fighters and everything you can think of. Then get your brand fans into training cause when the shit hits the fan you’ll be to close to the front and recruiting new soldiers will be the last thing on your mind.

ps. Just to clear things up. I’m a drone in many cases

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