Domino's spent $50.4M on TV ads to brag about $100k donation

https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/sqnla7/dominos_spent_504_million_and_counting_on_tv_ads/

by ushakov • 4 years ago

299 80 4 years ago

old.reddit.com

Does anyone think rising inflation will tame such splurges?

4oo42• 4 years ago

No, it will probably make it worse since it gives them cover to waste money like this then raise prices under the pretense of inflation.

gruez2• 4 years ago

This ignores macroeconomics 101. If money is less plentiful/cheap (as of rising interest rates brought on by inflation), then there's less incentive to waste money on investments with questionable return prospects. This includes "investments" in PR.

The point about being able to "raise prices under the pretense of inflation" is a red herring. You know what's better than raising prices and then blowing the surplus on ads? Raising prices and pocketing it. You only spend it on frivolous projects if there's nothing better to do with it (eg. because the fed flooded the economy with dollars).

doitLP• 4 years ago

Waste? Any press is good press and a lot of people are talking about this.

Besides, the company already allocated budget for this last year as part of their broader video budget. This commercial run just happens to be about the donation. These things are usually done by some Chief of Bullshit and Diversity Officer and the ad agency chose to highlight it to tick the “social responsibility” slot in this year’s slate of commercials.

Would you rather they spent the money on more ads of dripping cheese? Would it be ok to spend $50mm promoting it if the donation was also $50mm? What a nothingpizza.

powerhour• 4 years ago

Probably not, as long as Pizza Hut is willing to spend comparable (inflated) cash. You might see a short-term dip, though.

winternett3• 4 years ago

The only thing that will change bad business practices is consumers not supporting bad business. It's obvious that regulators are willfully asleep at the wheel.

atdrummond• 4 years ago

It wasn’t even corporate who made the donation - it was local franchisees.

winternett3• 4 years ago

Domino's also charges a convenience fee on top of your tip for pizza delivery when ordering online. It changes based on your order's volume.

So many business related things simply don't make sense any more.

dymk2• 4 years ago

Are people willing to pay it? If yes, makes sense from their angle.

balls1872• 4 years ago

As far as I am aware, every food delivery services charges a delivery fee, which is some % of total cost of the order.

As restaurants operate on thin margins, food revenue cannot provide enough money to invest in technology (you may be surprised at the number of fast food companies that have invested in CX through mobile ordering). Rather fees, like delivery fees, are used to invest in R&D.

chrismorgan• 4 years ago

There’s something like that in Heinlein’s The Man Who Sold the Moon, after the explosion of a space station and ship; in a company meeting:

—⁂—

“Very well. Now the public relations report—let me call attention to the first item, gentlemen. The vice-president in charge recommends a schedule of annuities, benefits, scholarships and so forth for dependents of the staff of the power satellite and of the pilot of the Charon: see appendix ‘C’.”

A director across from Harriman—Phineas Morgan, chairman of the food trust, Cuisine, Incorporated—protested, “What is this, Ed? Too bad they were killed of course, but we paid them skyhigh wages and carried their insurance to boot. Why the charity?”

Harriman grunted. “Pay it—I so move. It’s peanuts. ‘Do not bind the mouths of the kine who tread the grain.’”

“I wouldn’t call better than nine hundred thousand ‘peanuts,’” protested Morgan.

“Just a minute, gentlemen—” It was the vice-president in charge of public relations, himself a director. “If you’ll look at the breakdown, Mr. Morgan, you will see that eighty-five percent of the appropriation will be used to publicize the gifts.”

Morgan squinted at the figures. “Oh—why didn’t you say so? Well, I suppose the gifts can be considered unavoidable overhead, but it’s a bad precedent.”

“Without them we have nothing to publicize.”

“Yes, but—”

—⁂—

(Harriman then insists on not settling with a woman who gave birth as the satellite blew up and is suing for half a million due to birth defects, saying that in the long run any compromise or settlement would be dearer than fighting it, even with possible bad publicity; and they should buy the judge if necessary.)

I greatly enjoy this story for its keen assessment of the social and business factors to such progress, through its main character Harriman. Indeed, the best science fiction does tend to contain rather a lot of social study.

csours• 4 years ago

Dang. I need to re-read some Heinlein. I read most of his books when I was a teenager.

dont__panic• 4 years ago

I loved The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, thanks for adding another book to my "to-read" queue!

graton• 4 years ago

I thought about this almost every I time I saw the ad. Doing a quick search there are about 6,185 Dominos restaurants in the US. Which works out to about $16 per restaurant.

I always felt it was just a marketing stunt and disingenuous of them.

PeterHolzwarth• 4 years ago

Did Domino's spend an extra 50 million to brag about a 100k donation, or did Domino's have a fairly normal ad-spend year, of which 50 million focused on the donation?

koheripbal• 4 years ago

This is a standard anti-corp hit post.

It's better to just skip it and move on.

toolz3• 4 years ago

While I'm generally inclined to agree with downvotes because you don't really explain your reasoning - this is a post on an openly biased subreddit (anti-work) and it doesn't source any of the information given.

It's quite openly an anti-corp hit post and it's not trying to inform readers. If it were then I wouldn't have to go research if what the poster is saying isn't completely fabricated.

ushakov2• 4 years ago

they’ve done it themselves

spending $50m on ads while bragging how much they help local businesses

it’s just on another level

mdavis68903• 4 years ago

I think a more genuine headline would be "Domino's spent $50.4 million (and counting) on TV ads [that] brag about [their franchisees] giving local businesses a total of $100,000"

Clearly they're going to spend money on advertising anyway. And it's not unreasonable for those advertisements to include things they are proud of, such as when their franchisees support local businesses. They clearly say "Domino's franchisees" in the ad.

sdenton4• 4 years ago

On the other hand, giving local businesses $50M could easily constitute it's own kind of widespread advertising...

tylersmith• 4 years ago

So could burning $50M, but that's not the advertising they chose.

mypastself• 4 years ago

Moreover, I don’t know what kind of app is used in the screenshot, and the information may very well be correct, but the Reddit post is unsourced. So someone in the comments posted a link to a Metro article as source, which links to a screenshot posted on Twitter. Might as well post this HN thread on Twitter to complete the ouroboros, perhaps a news site will pick it up next…

mdavis68903• 4 years ago

Obligatory: https://m.xkcd.com/978/

tzs2• 4 years ago

No, they spent several times $50.4M on TV ads to promote their brand to try to increase food sales. $50.4M of that happened to be on ads that featured a $100k donation.

That part of the cost of their $50+M ad campaign was a $100k donation is no more interesting or relevant than how much they spent on animation to make their Noid ads or how much they spent to pay actors in their ads.

enumjorge• 4 years ago

The point still stands that spending $50M of your ad budget to highlight a $100k donation is a bit ridiculous.

eloff2• 4 years ago

Not really, because they would have spent the ad budget anyway, just without calling attention to the donation.

tzs2• 4 years ago

They are completely different categories of spending. The $100k is part of the costs to make the ad. Almost all of the rest of the $50.4M is the cost of run the ad. It's not sensible to compare them.

elmomle• 4 years ago

What you say is correct from al the perspective of advertising and corporate budgeting. From the perspective of charitable work, which they invited by loudly proclaiming "look at our charity", it is appalling.

dusted• 4 years ago

I agree, it'd be much better if they hadn't donated at all.

bragr• 4 years ago

IMHO most charity work is kind of scam anyways. Sure you've got some proportion really out there doing good and helping desperate people, but most of them seem like ego trips and tax scams for rich people. In most cases, at least in democratic nations, I think it would be in our interest to take all that money and give it local and national governments to fully fund education, social services, environment causes, animal control, healthcare, etc. By letting charities handle large chunks of those, we essentially allow rich people to dictate public policy.

b112• 4 years ago

Some say that giving money to marketing companies, and the people they employ, is a bit of charity, for what other function could those people possibly serve in society?

kube-system2• 4 years ago

Ironically enough, the most effective charities often have significant marketing budgets. You can't do any work if you don't have any money to do it with.

Also, nobody is under any impression that Dominos is a charity and not a pizza joint.

whack• 4 years ago

loudly proclaiming "look at our charity"

They weren't touting their charity. They were touting their charitable franchise owners. That's a major distinction.

Imagine if Google made an ad saying "We donated $50,000 to charity. Look how generous we are. Come work for Google". That would be nonsensical.

Now imagine if Google made an ad saying "Joe is a Googler. Joe donated $50,000 of his own money to charity. Look how wonderful our Googlers are. Come work for Google alongside people like Joe." Very cheesy, but it makes a lot more sense. Domino's ad is the latter, not the former.

lotsofpulp2• 4 years ago

Why is it appalling? Would people prefer the charity get $0 and the advertisers get $50.1M? Or the shareholders get an extra $0.1M?

Personally, I find all non anonymous charitable donations in poor taste, and that reflects badly on Dominos for someone thinking like me. But for those receiving charity, surely any amount greater than $0 is enough, since it is a charity.

bachmeier• 4 years ago

I can't tell if this comment is real or parody. If it's real, and you really don't understand the point, ask yourself why a $100k donation would be useful addition to a TV commercial.

dwild3• 4 years ago

The $50m is there whether the donation happens or not... it's their advertising budget, they are going to spend it, they advertise their brands...

Why a $100k donation is useful? Well obviously because it's good that they gave $100k... You prefer $50m of ads with 0 donation? You do you, but I prefer the former...

toolz3• 4 years ago

and the source for this is a link to an anti-work subreddit whose post content is a screencap and a title that doesn't source the $50MM ad budget?

How is this making the front page? I'm not claiming any of this is incorrect, but I am saying based on the submission I have nothing but some random posters word (on a biased sub) as the source.

ushakov2• 4 years ago

How is this making the front page?

a lot of HN’s are biased against advertising industry

gmac• 4 years ago

Are you sure they’re biased against, or might they just be (possibly legitimately) against?

whywhywhywhy• 4 years ago

Yeah I mean no shock there. When you pull back the curtain most charities and donations are just complete BS.

jovial_cavalier• 4 years ago

I guess they could just not make a donation and instead spend $50.5M on ads... Would you be happier then?

selykg• 4 years ago

This is sort of the opposite, maybe... of better to be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

Better to donate money silently, than to open one's mouth and show how poorly you spend your money.

Or something like that. I vowed, long ago, that if I ever ran a company successful enough to be able to donate large sums of money, that it would simply be done quietly, and only ever mentioned in ways that it made sense. I.e. if it were a board meeting, cool, mention it. The entrance to the building in the lobby? Cool, mention it. But in my mind, donations are not meant to be bragged about, it's a civil service, not marketing.

areoform• 4 years ago

The screenshot seems to be iSpot.tv, https://www.ispot.tv/ which seems to be somewhat accurate. You can sign up for a trial and look up the ad.

gruez2• 4 years ago

Not really. Surely a megacorp like dominos would get better rates (because of negotiating power/buying in bulk) than buying at spot prices on some self service website?

engneering101• 4 years ago

wow! what a shame!

shalmanese• 4 years ago

It's like saying Subway spent a billion dollars to promote how one guy bought $10K worth of sandwiches over 10 years. Like, yeah, that's a technically accurate description of the Jared from Subway campaign but the actual example is meant to stand in for a larger message.

Same with Dominoes, they obviously spent more than $100K in charity over the entire year, they are using 1 $100K campaign as a standin for all the other charitable stuff they did because it's a much more compelling ad than just a spreadsheet scrolling for 30 seconds.

coding123• 4 years ago

It's not like ALL of you judging things right now don't even donate .2% of your shit away either. (Yes I know some of you donate really well but the vast majority of judgers right now - don't)

pulketo• 4 years ago

Corruption inside, no other explanation

Domino's spent $50.4M on TV ads to brag about $100k donation

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