2016 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

During Ramadan, moms become the stars of the culinary world and their homemade food dominates the iftar table, leading to a drastic decrease in sales of big food chains including Domino’s pizza (80% decrease). Earlier, the brand tried all the tricks to curb this decrease with no success. So for 2015 and instead of going head-to-head with moms’ we decided to re-introduce our pizzas in a form that complement & add flavor to their table by launching the first mini-pizzas by Dominos: The Do-minis. Small sized pizzas similar to pastries that mom already rely on to enrich their table.

Creative Execution

Our creative opted for a promotion that repositioned pizza as a complementary dish to the iftar table. To do this, we ditched the classic promotions and redesigned the production process whereby Dominos started selling mini pizzas. Pizzas that were perceived as a welcome addition that enriched Ramadan cuisine rather than competing with it. In parallel to the product development, we launched a communication campaign to introduce the mini pizzas under the new brand name ‘Dominis’. A name combining Dominos & Minis. The campaign used outdoor banners as it has high visibility with moms during their grocery shopping and digital banners in food websites that were frequented by moms to for food recipes. In addition, we utilized Domino’s pizza social networks during the launch and throughout the month. The campaign ran according to budget and preset plan.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Instead of viewing pizza as a fast food not worthy of the holy month of Ramadan, our mini pizzas managed to position pizza as complementary addition that adds small bursts of flavors and richness to the iftar table. The proof in the pudding was in the results. For the first time ever, we succeeded in countering the sales decline of -80% and reversed it into an increase in sales by +35%. They say: “If you can’t beat’em, join’em”. So when we complimented mama’s dinner table, she graciously invited us over in Ramadan.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

‘Meet the Domini’s’ was a limited promotion that was introduced during the month of Ramadan 2015. The objective of this promotion was to counter the sales decline of pizzas by introducing a new pizza product during a relatively low consumption period where fast food makes way to homemade food. The new product’s purpose is to give an alternative to traditional pizza that witnesses a sharp dip in consumption.