MARKETING: Dominos Free Pizza Goof Up

Domino’s inadvertently gave out nearly 11,000 free pizzas in a 12-hour period. It happened from a corporate goof up of testing a promotional scheme that could only be accessed by inputting the secret password “bailout”. Someone discovered the code and posted the free pizza deal. Demand for the online free pizza coupons exploded.

In December, Domino's created an online-only promotion for a free pizza using the codeword "bailout," but it never got the green light, said Tim McIntyre, Domino's vice president of communications. "It had never technically been activated, but we hadn't turned it off, either." Monday night, an "enterprising customer" discovered the deal and spread it on the Internet, McIntyre said. By the time it was shut down at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, nearly 11,000 pizzas were given away.

"…I started getting calls at about 10 a.m. from managers asking what was going on. I said I had no idea," said John Glass, owner of 14 Domino's franchises in the region. "I called corporate, they had no idea at the time. No one seemed to have any idea, everyone was scrambling. It all kind of snowballed."  Glass thinks he was hit harder than anyone else in the area, since he owns all the Domino's near college campuses. In total, he thinks he gave away 600 to 700 pizzas.

Corporate promises to reimburse every store. - Cincinnati.Com

Will franchise owners get fully bailed out from Domino’s coupon meltdown? Stay tuned.