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At least according to this NY Times article (excerpt below) …
There are at least two highly-publicized high profile examples that have occurred just in the last couple of weeks … Domino’s Pizza, Amazon’s gay healing program … and the Motrin example from last November.
Given the many many examples of changes in power and authority that have presented themselves over the last several years (political-issue blogging, political activism more generally, major changes to the education, advertising, music, newspaper and increasingly television business domains, you’d think there will soon be a widespread recognition that the examples cited are clear glimpses of the “new normal”, the conditions that will be with us from now on.
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Video Prank at Domino’s Taints Brand
Online comments helped the police identify Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setzer as the makers of a troubling kitchen video.
When two Domino’s Pizza employees filmed a prank in the restaurant’s kitchen, they decided to post it online. In a few days, thanks to the power of social media, they ended up with felony charges, more than a million disgusted viewers, and a major company facing a public relations crisis.
In videos posted on YouTube and elsewhere this week, a Domino’s employee in Conover, N.C., prepared sandwiches for delivery while putting cheese up his nose, nasal mucus on the sandwiches, and violating other health-code standards while a fellow employee provided narration.
The two were charged with delivering prohibited foods.
By Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than a million times on YouTube. References to it were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter.
As Domino’s is realizing, social media has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into marketing crises. In November, Motrin posted an ad suggesting that carrying babies in slings was a painful new fad. Unhappy mothers posted Twitter complaints about it, and bloggers followed; within days, Motrin had removed the ad and apologized.
On Monday, Amazon.com apologized for a “ham-fisted” error after Twitter members complained that the sales rankings for gay and lesbian books seemed to have disappeared — and, since Amazon took more than a day to respond, the social-media world criticized it for being uncommunicative.
According to Domino’s, the employees told executives that they had never actually delivered the tainted food. Still, Domino’s fired the two employees on Tuesday, and they were in the custody of the Conover police department on Wednesday evening, facing felony charges.
But the crisis was not over for Domino’s.
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