Wake-up, Study, Sleep (then repeat)

Perhaps the best part about being in the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is that I’m constantly learning. Everyday I’m learning about business, the world, and learning about myself!  I have the extraordinary opportunity to interact with fascinating people — and get to ask them all kinds of provocative questions. I love it because I’m curious — I always have been. In fact, I’d say a thirst for knowledge may be the most important part of being successful at a top MBA program.

But, it’s not just curiosity that will lead you to success in business school. I learned early in my first year that if I was going to make it out of this program I needed to develop a thick skin. Teflon-like, really. Because, you’re dealing with a culture of highly opinionated, extremely competitive, A-type personalities, who all have an opinion … on my lack of hair, my clothes, the comments I made in class, what I do out of class, you name it— they probably have something to say about it.

Bottom-line: as a underrepresented minority in a top MBA program, you have to be willing to deal with a lot of nonsense. The only way to handle it is to know exactly who you are, and remember, the noise is just that— noise!

And last — but, not least: My Financial Industry Twitter feed. It quickly keeps me up to speed with the day-to-day changes in the business world.  Combine that with my Capital IQ account, and I have everything I could ever want to know about a company, every bit of historical data on the economy, every last morsel of information on everything from tax rates to share buybacks is now, just a click away. So, if you don’t have some type of news feed (Yahoo! Finance, Google Alerts, etc), I would strongly recommend you get one before you return back to school.

Marketers know that a brand’s identity is sometimes just as important as the product. But what happens when the brand’s enduring mantra is no longer what’s in vogue? In a recent campaign launch, Domino’s negated its well-known 30-minutes or less pledge that it’s held since the 90s, and have opted instead to promote slower preparation and delivery time. By marketing the slowdown, Domino’s is going against the grain of many popular quick-service chains that boast speed as a defining service factor.

Why the sudden change?

Well, because consumers have made it clear that they want to know whats in their food and they are looking for things that are fresh and appear to be more natural and healthy to consume.  This is putting a bend on companies like Frito Lay, Yum Brands and McDonald’s, who (historically) manufacture products and services that have been good to the taste— but, bad to the “waist line”.  For Domino’s, the challenge was shifting consumer perception from a budget-friendly product with speedy delivery to a more premium product, such as its pan pizza, prepared with quality ingredients by skillful employees.

This is similar to Taco Bell’s advertisements earlier in the 2013 year that highlighted Chef Lorena Garcia, who goes into great detail about the ingredients and the freshness of the Taco Bell cantina bowls (See Link below). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_XEqzVKYlz

Now, the taco seller is Yum’s fastest-growing brand in the U.S. and has pushed other fast food chains like Pizza Hut, Dominoes, and Papa John’s into a deep pricing war to sell pies as low as $7.99.  How does each differentiate themselves from the next is the battle we are seeing played out here. Well, if you’re Domino’s, you start by boasting the positive effects of a slower delivery time and describing the craftsmanship involved in creating a Domino’s pan pizza unlike your competitors. More than that, the campaign allows Domino’s to compete with fast-casual chains that promote made-from-scratch quality products at a higher price point, such as Taco Bell and McDonald’s.

Another way you differentiate yourselves is by seeking ways to brand yourself with tried and true brands that are beloved by most of your consumer base.  Entertainers, music, and sports have always been regarded as good tools for branding, but Domino’s is trying something different with its latest promotion:

Domino’s has partnered with the MLB and MLB.TV to establish the #DominoNo.  Essentially, it works like this: The first 10K MLB.TV subscribers to register at the website for the cable service after the first two no-hitters of the baseball season, will then be sent a code for a free medium pizza from Domino’s.

You confused?

Me too!

While I like the idea and the concept, it seems as though this would have been a better promotion for Domino’s if this was extended throughout the regular season, as last year there were only 7 no-hitters during the entire season.  Papa Johns is giving away 1 million pizzas during the football season and it has drastically improved their visibility and brand mantra in the minds of consumers (i.e.- “Better pizza, Better ingredients…”).  70,000 pizzas couldn’t possibly hurt their bottom line if Papa’s is able to do 1 million.  Secondly, MLB.TV has been a huge success for the MLB and has expanded the product worldwide since its conception in 2003.  What started as 30K subscribers, has now shifted to almost 3.7 million subscribers as of last year.  These numbers can only be viewed as increasing going forward with the growing number of fantasy baseball participants and the emerging countries love for westernized sports and entertainment.  Domino’s could do more than just this quick and seemingly short-sighted promotion and look to become the official provider of pizzas for the MLB, which seems to be a far better and advantageous partnership, than this promotion that could potentially be done before the end of May!?  Last year, the first & second no-hitter was thrown on May 3rd and May 7th, respectfully. I think this was a waste of advertising spend, even if we are to estimate that this would cost the company $100K ($80K in pizzas; $20K in advertisement).  I think the bigger loss was the opportunity to seize upon a bigger promotion and partnership with one of the premiere organizations in the world.  Why not just extend the promotion through the entire season?  If not that, why not put the promotion with a major league team and reach for a bigger deal with the MLB?  Idea just seems not very thought out.

However, going forward, I think we are going to see more and more creative and unique ways that fast food retailers will employ to differentiate themselves from one another.  With shrinking margins, health and wellness regulations, and changing consumer behavior due to economic impact fast food retailers will look for more ways to show consumers why they should care about their product.