Domino’s Teams with Tivo
In his blog, my colleague has been closely covering the internet pizza innovation wars taking place between Domino’s and Papa John’s. However, in a deal with Tivo, Domino’s has shifted the battlefield back to more traditional television-based advertising – with a twist, of course. Tivo will enable their broadband customers to order Domino’s pizza via their set-top boxes via two touch-points: 1) the main Tivo screen and 2) pop-up ads that appear when Domino’s commercials are either viewed or past over.
As a New York pizza snob, it’s not easy for me to complement Domino’s. However, I love this idea. The question is: can they properly execute? Here are some thoughts:
First, timely pizza ads work – or at least they work on me. I can easily be coaxed into an impulse pizza purchase when either sitting down to a movie or sporting event. With this in mind, one opportunity is careful placement of the ads alongside targeted pay-per-view, on-demand or pre-recorded movies/shows. Perhaps a Domino’s link should appear just as a viewer is sitting down to catch up on past recorded episodes of Entourage, or even at 1PM on Sunday just as the NFL week is kicking off. Relying heavily on passive means, such as waiting for a normal Domino’s TV spot to appear, would be a mistake when more aggressive methods are available. Sound annoying to the Tivo user? Allow them to suppress certain overly aggressive ads.
Second, the biggest hurdle is inevitably going to be a person’s skepticism as to whether ordering a pizza via his or her television will really work. Seeing is believing, so I’d recommend heavy discounts for first time orders. Maybe Domino’s and Tivo can borrow a page from the TrialPay playbook and offer something mutually beneficial for conversion, such as subsidies for on-demand movies in exchange for pizza purchases or vice versa. The options are plentiful, but something needs to be in place to create an incentive towards this new behavior.
Who knew pizza would be the next frontier in on-demand technology?
