Written by丨Shaobo
Editor丨Wen Qing
Today's article is the 8th installment of the global research topic, and the in-depth selection of operations focuses on a company that cannot be bypassed on the restaurant track - Domino's Pizza.
If you want to talk about the reason that you can't get around, as a global chain of pizzerias, you have captured a group of "Damen believers" because of your love for all kinds of tricks before entering the domestic market, and have become the world's first pizza brother;
After entering the domestic market, after more than 20 years of silence, it began to accelerate its expansion, relying on excellent products and WeChat global operation, so that all diners who have eaten can't help but shout "Damen forever", hoping to have a Domino's restaurant at their doorstep.
In today's content, we will analyze Domino's business in China from the perspective of global management, with the help of the growth model of "content-social-commercialization", and let's take a look at how the world's largest pizza company has gone from being unknown in the domestic market to gaining a lot of brand believers.
1. Domino's global operation
2. Content - Use games and peripherals to fascinate users
3. Social-build a relationship of trust with users with commitments
4. Commercialization - impress users with hard discounts and membership benefits
01. Domino's global management
The first brother of Pisa bravely entered China
In 1997, Domino's opened its first store in Beijing. As early as in the domestic pizza segment, Domino's was not the most eye-catching one.
Pizza Hut opened its first store in Dongzhimen, Beijing, as early as 1990, and Papa John's, which entered China later than Domino's, also expanded faster than Domino's in the early days, and there are also domestic brands such as Zumbo Pizza and Le Caysa Pizza that continue to emerge to compete with it.
The reason for this is that Domino's constantly changing agency rights in the first 20 years of its entry into the domestic market have made it unable to formulate a corresponding development strategy for different stages of the market in China.
The turning point was in 2017, when Domino's China won the entire Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Region franchises, opening the road to integration and expansion.
On April 7 this year, Domino's exclusive master franchisee in China, Dashi Co., Ltd., announced its business overview for the first quarter of 2024. As of March 31, Domino's operated 835 stores in 30 cities in China, with about 168 million members, and is expected to exceed 1,000 stores in the fourth quarter of this year.
Notably, Domino's has achieved 27 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth since the third quarter of 2017.
Online and offline global layout
Similar to its global market, Domino's China has more than 80% of its orders online, but what makes it unique is that Domino's has built an omni-channel for members to order food online: including WeChat mini programs, apps, official websites, and third-party platforms such as Meituan Takeaway, Ele.me, Alipay/Koubei, etc. In recent years, Domino's has been accelerating its expansion into new cities and stores in the domestic market.
From the above figure, we can intuitively see a phenomenon that Domino's focuses on online ordering and offline exposure in the global operation.
There are also two reasons behind the phenomenon, one is that the delivery business occupies the majority of store orders, so expanding more online ordering channels can facilitate users to have more choices of online ordering methods.
Second, at present, Domino's stores are mostly concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, so large-scale offline exposure in the store opening city is more cost-effective for stores than online Shanghai volume placement, and it can also more accurately acquire customers.
Faithful Damen believers
After "Maimen", "Damen" also makes young people stand out.
On social platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and Zhihu in China, most of the discussions about Domino's focus on two topics, one is how to match a super delicious pizza combination among many flavors, and the other is when Domino's will open a store in its own city?
(Users shout in the message area of Domino's official account to expand new cities)
Long queues in front of Domino's stores in China are commonplace. Every time I enter the new city and open the first store, it also triggers a strong queuing boom.
At the 2024 Domino's Global Conference, the headquarters also specially commended Domino's domestic stores for occupying the top 20 sales of Domino's global stores in the first 30 days, which is enough to show the popularity of Domino's new stores.
After a preliminary understanding of Domino's global operation in China, we will start from the model of "content-social-commercialization" to see how Domino's drives the stable operation of the growth flywheel through global operation in China.
02. Content - Keep users hooked with games and peripherals
Gamified operations
Domino's gamified operation was all the rage abroad in the early years. In 2011, Domino's launched an app called "Pizza Hero" abroad, which allows users to design their own pizzas, simulating the use of different doughs and adding different ingredients, such as vegetables, meat, sauces, cheese and so on.
Once you're done, you can order directly online, and your nearest Domino's store will make your pizza. Plus, you can save this pizza as a "favorite" for next order.
What's even more interesting is that this game also solves the problem of the shortage of chefs in Domino's stores. If your score in the game is high enough, Domino's will immediately send an interview invitation notification through the app, and through contextual implantation, the recruitment of employees will be completed by the way, killing two birds with one stone.
Returning to the domestic market, it can also be said that there is no catering company that understands mini-games better than Domino's.
(Screenshot of some mini-games launched by Domino's)
With the help of WeChat Mini Programs, Domino's launches a new gameplay game every two months or so, incorporating the ingredients of the season's main pizza in the game. Users can get corresponding score rewards by experiencing limited-time mini games, and the scores are finally bound to the lucky draw.
Taking the latest issue of the "Durian Flying Knife" Challenge as an example, after users have followed the above process, the system will automatically participate in the lottery according to the score rank, the higher the rank, the greater the chance of winning the free pizza ticket.
Among them, Musang King hunters who score more than 810 points can share 1,000 free pizza coupons; Musang King catchers with 560-800 points can share 600 free pizza coupons; Musang King novices with a score of 300-550 will share a total of 400 free pizza coupons.
Even if you don't win a free pizza ticket, you will get a free egg tart or drink card coupon at the minimum, and after clicking to add the card pack, it will automatically jump to the order mini program, giving the user a reason to place an order.
Compared with the direct issuance of massive coupons, Domino's allows users to pay time and brainpower after paying time and brainpower, and get a stronger sense of participation, and the verification rate of lottery tickets will be higher.
Merchandise package marketing
In addition to games, another of Domino's's content marketing tools is limited-time merch packages.
Co-branded activities in the catering industry have become the norm in recent years, and there are even bloggers on Xiaohongshu who specialize in collecting and broadcasting daily co-branded activities of catering brands, and have a group of co-branded fans who always follow.
(Upcoming Domino's co-branded package event)
In addition to the co-branded package, Domino's will always launch a limited holiday package in advance for each national holiday, not only the food in the package will be adjusted accordingly to cater to the festive atmosphere, but also additional peripheral products will be given away.
For example, 38 Goddess Day to send a mobile phone holder, May Day to send an electronic scale, Mother's Day to send a love apron, etc. It not only gives users a sense of ritual of the festival, but also makes marketing promotions with the help of additional peripheral gifts.
(Domino's Festival Package Event Announcement)
03. Social - Build a relationship of trust with users with commitments
The brand promise of 30-minute delivery
In 1973, Domino's first proposed the selling point of "half price if the delivery time exceeds half an hour" abroad, and later changed it to "free pizza coupon for delivery within 30 minutes", and this selling point is still retained after entering the domestic market. It can be said that Domino's is not only the originator of pizza delivery, but also the originator of the instant delivery industry.
(30 minutes must be reached everywhere Domino's users can see)
Why do you have to give users a social commitment of less than 30 minutes? The source of this problem is not only to get the pizza to the person ordering it as quickly as possible, but because the pizza must be served hot to be delicious.
So how do you achieve this? The answer is, make a pizza quickly. The key to 30-minute delivery is the process from the time the customer places the order to the store to receive, arrange, produce and place the order. The faster the process of making the finished product, the easier it will be to be delivered within 30 minutes of placing the order.
However, catering has a strong peak-to-valley characteristic, and the pressure on store orders usually peaks during lunch and dinner hours. Domino's China has implemented a set of intelligent store scheduling system, which can combine historical orders, weather, promotional information and other factors to predict the order volume of stores in each period, and intelligently schedule store employees for different processes such as "order taking→ baking→ catering → delivery", and "flexibly" adapt to the peak and valley of orders. Forecasts of store orders can even be accurate to every half hour.
Out of trust in its own delivery capabilities, Domino's is also much more generous than other platforms in terms of overtime compensation. No matter the storm, even if it is only a minute overtime, you will be paid a free 9-inch pizza coupon.
So much so that the migrant workers who usually hate overtime for takeaways occasionally can't help but pray that the rider will be a little slower for a minute or two when ordering Domino's. Some people even encountered the delivery timeout when they used the pizza coupon given away after the time out, and realized the unlimited nesting doll of the pizza coupon.
Visualize pizza making progress
As early as 2008, Domino's was the first foreign country to launch the first order tracking system in the food delivery industry. You can check the real-time production and delivery progress of pizza, is it very similar to the function of Meituan Takeaway Ele.me a few years later.
In 2019, Domino's China independently developed an "integrated service platform" based on foreign inspiration, which allows customers to not only track outgoing orders online in real time, but also "go deep into the kitchen" to track the whole process of orders from preparation to roasting to rider pick-up.
(Real-time display of order progress after ordering)
The transparency of the order process not only dispels the anxiety of users when waiting for orders, but also makes people say that Domino's employees are really fast in terms of food delivery! A freshly baked pizza takes only 10 minutes from dough to packaging and delivery.
04. Commercialization - Impress users with hard discounts and membership benefits
One event after another
The tweets on Domino's official account every Tuesday must be reserved for the "one after another" campaign. The so-called succession means that if you place an order every Tuesday & Wednesday throughout the year, users can directly enjoy a 7% discount on pizza.
(Domino's official account every Tuesday event preview)
(7% off pizza sitewide)
In addition, Domino's will also launch free delivery fee activities from time to time, any pizza can be obtained by upgrading the curl, double pie base or purchasing a designated pizza, and you don't have to make up the free delivery fee threshold of 88 yuan.
What's more, the above two activities can be used together, which also makes every Tuesday and Wednesday a crazy pizza day for Damen believers.
"One after another" is equivalent to creating a node for users to think of "ordering Domino's pizza" every week, labeling the date and forming a fixed memory in the fan base. is like the "Crazy Thursday" of KFC fans, the "Double 11" and "618" of e-commerce users. Honor of Kings player's "Five-Five Black Festival".
Membership Operations
Domino's domestic membership system is divided into three levels: first-time Achiever, Heart-to-heart Enjoyer and Exclusive Member, and for different levels of members, higher user rights and interests are given step by step.
(Domino's membership system and points earning channels)
If you want to become a higher-level user, in addition to 1:1 consumption points, you can also earn them through limited-time tasks and long-term tasks. The points obtained by users can also be consumed through channels such as coupon packages and point lottery to obtain 5% off pizza or snack lottery tickets, which can be converted into hooks for placing orders again, forming a positive cycle.
(Domino's point consumption channel)
05. Write at the end
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, Domino's in foreign countries is too fond of all kinds of flowers, and many consumers know that Domino's is a technology company that just happens to be selling pizza. It can be felt from the following living history:
In 2007, when everyone else was still ordering food by phone, Domino's launched an online ordering business to start the digital process.
In 2008, we launched the "Pizza tracker", an order tracking system that allows you to check the progress of production and delivery in real time. At that time, the domestic takeaway giant had not yet been born.
In 2011, the "Pizza Hero" app was launched, allowing you to simulate making your own pizza and then place an order for a customized service.
In 2012, the drone food delivery service was launched, although it was a concept, but it was a few years before Amazon's concept. At the same time, he also played a lot of social networks, playing with the hashtag #Photo with Domino's food delivery drone# on Facebook.
In 2013, the "Pizza Profile" was launched, allowing you to create your own pizza booking profile by entering your preferences, address, and other information. At the same time, Domino's also collects each user's order through digital capabilities, analyzes taste, style and other preferences, and pushes customized pizzas.
In 2014, the voice automatic ordering system "Dom" was launched, and you can directly communicate with this artificial intelligence to place orders. In the same year, it also launched the Ford on-board app to place orders when driving; Implantation in the X-BOX console makes it possible to order pizza directly from the handle.
In 2015, the "Tummy Translator" app was released, which allows you to scan a custom pizza by placing your phone on your stomach. In the same year, the Domino's app also appeared in Samsung smart TVs, and you can place orders while watching TV; What's even cooler is that you can link your Domino's account on Twitter and post a pizza emoji, even if you place an order.
In 2016, a mini delivery car was launched, which was delivered while baking, which not only satisfied the taste, but also guaranteed 30 minutes of delivery, and the key is that it was still magical.
In 2017, it partnered with Ford to develop a pizza delivery service using self-driving cars.
In 2019, Domino's China developed its own "Integrated Service Center", which allows customers to track the entire process of order preparation, from preparation to roasting to rider pick-up.
In 2021, the company and Nuro, a robotics company, jointly developed a driverless food delivery vehicle (Domino's) and launched it in Houston.
In 2022, partnered with SkyDrop to further promote drone food delivery.
But in China, the above story does not seem so sexy, at least for now, compared to all kinds of fancy activities, on the basis of delicious and delicious local flavors, the use of gamification and package marketing, the brand promise of giving users 30 minutes to arrive, the superposition of "one after another" hard discount activities, and the integration of online and offline continue to operate steadily, is the king.