Domino’s built its brand in Delivery, and earned a reputation as a technology company with innovative digital ideas like emoji and Twitter ordering. In 2018 the goal was different: grow carryout share. “Paving for Pizza” encouraged consumers to report their neighborhood’s faulty roads, so Domino’s could repair them to help ensure pizzas get to consumers intact. Customers submitted over 194,066 paving nominations from 17,198 ZIP codes; even municipal governments and community groups encouraged citizens to participate. Domino’s has paved roads in 13 cities, and expanded the program to pave in at least one community in each of the 50 states.

Domino’s requested a 360 campaign to advertise their Weeklong Carryout Special. To motivate carryout consumers, we had to uncover what is special or different about their experience, versus delivery. Our research revealed an interesting insight: carryout customers expressed a need to exercise control over their pizza experience. They carry out to ensure the order is right, hot, and home in the shortest amount of time. It seemed the most stressful roadblock to getting pizza home safely is a rough ride.

As the world’s number one pizza company, Domino’s will go to great lengths for the love of pizza. That’s why Domino’s tackled what no pizza brand—or any other type of brand, for that matter—would think to do: fix the nation’s roads. We realized that almost all carryout customers share an unexpected archnemesis: bad roads that can ruin good pizza when it bumps around in the carryout box on the drive home. So, with Paving for Pizza, Domino’s committed to paving potholes and fixing roads in all 50 states, in order for those customers to be guaranteed a smoother ride home for their pizzas, no matter where they live.

We took a step back to look at the cultural context of the moment: domestic issues like infrastructure were going unaddressed. Customers carry out their pizza because they crave total control, end to end, in their experience. Proving we understand and empathize with these customers was key to reaching them. By combining the cultural tension around infrastructure with the consumer insight on control, the creative concept of paving roads, to ensure a safer ride for pizza, was born.

We started with an idea that if we were to pave potholes, we would be able to give Domino’s consumers more control over their carryout experience, but first we had to figure out how to actually pave potholes. We cold-called 1,300 county governments, offering them donations for paving, and learned that free money is surprisingly hard to give away. Ultimately, we secured a partner city (Bartonville, Texas) to serve as a prototype for the project, which allowed proof of concept to other potential city governments. We paved three cities before National Television started and paving submissions started rolling in through the microsite. After just three months Domino’s saw such a great response that they agreed to pave potholes in all 50 states. There was a ton of skepticism throughout the process, and Vice even filed a Freedom of Information Act request to make sure our program was legit…it was.

• Over 1 billion media impressions

• #1 post on Reddit.com on 6/12/18, and trending story on LinkedIn on 6/13/18

• The response after just three months was so overwhelming that Domino’s decided to expand the program and commit to paving at least one community in every state

• Significant activity in local markets where paving took place, securing +63MM local media impressions

• Highest stock price in Domino’s history reported 8/30/18 at $300.67/share

• 194,066 unique microsite paving submissions from 17,198 ZIP codes in all 50 states

• Local market campaigns were started by single communities rallying the community to submit their town for paving grants

• Local franchisees and businesses have also decided to match Domino’s donation in some cases

1. EXAMPLE: Domino’s franchisees in Toledo, Ohio and Coos Bay, Oregon and a paving company in Rexburg, Idaho decided to match Domino’s donation