Domino’s ad campaign encouraging customers to upload photos of pizza seems like a fun promotion, but it’s actually a strategy to gain insight into customers’ preferences. Nerdery’s Mukesh Pitroda explores how marketers can use AI creatively to better understand their customers.
Casual viewers may have wondered what Domino’s was thinking when it launched its Points for Pies promotion earlier this year. The chain announced it would award pointsOpens a new window toward free pies to users who uploaded a photo of a pizza to its app.
What’s the catch? The rewards applied to pictures of any pizza, whether it came from Domino’s, a rival chain, the grocery-store freezer or a neighborhood slice shop. The company committed to giving awayOpens a new window at least 100 million points toward free pies during the 12-week program — a lot of money for pizza that wasn’t necessarily bought at Domino’s. So what were they thinking?
Domino’s was dealing in an entirely different currency: Dollars for data. By gathering insight into customers’ pizza habits and preferences, the chain can develop a cheat-sheet for future business models, all made possible thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
Domino’s is hardly the only company looking to tech to bolster customer experience; companies are expected to be spending $57 billion on AI platforms by 2021. Here’s how leveraging AI and ML could bring Domino’s a large slice of the delivery-pizza pie.
A better product
The insights gathered from Points for Pies go far beyond the pepperoni vs. sausage battle. ML can be used to analyze shapes, colors and texture to determine pizza ingredients, crust type and more. Then, analysis of the visual data lends valuable insight into customers’ habits and preferences, cross-referencing the date, time and location of the pizza against the pie’s toppings, style and size.
Domino’s might find that customers in Portland order more Cinnastix after midnight, or find that diners in Florida prefer more cold items than those in Denver. Then, it could specifically target individual users based on their preferences, or develop buyer personas that help fuel new products and personalized marketing campaigns.
A better brand experience
More than 60 percent of Domino’s U.S. orders are placed via digital channels, in part because of the company’s experimentation with a vast array of platforms. In April 2018, the brand launched Snapchat ordering, and in November it created an in-app, AR-powered pizza builder that allows for more than 1 billion possible combinations (not that I’d recommend all of them). Thanks to technology, Domino’s is taking the idea of allowing the customer whenever, wherever access to a whole new level, offering 18 different ways to order.
That trailblazing is only expected to accelerate. “Artificial intelligence provides great learning platforms that will enable us to do more to deliver convenience for our customers and better job experiences for our team members,†said J. Patrick Doyle, former Domino’s president and CEO, in a statement last year, adding that the company hopes to become 100 percent digital in the future.
Also Read:Â What Is a Digital Experience Platform and Who Needs It?Opens a new window
A better edge on the competition
Domino’s is already outselling Pizza Hut, but there’s always room for growth of market share. The chain could use the information it collects regarding where users took a photo (location) — as well as analyzing the photo to deduce pizza brands — to target competitors from an advertising/marketing perspective. If a lot of people are posting photos from a specific competitor, Domino’s could specifically create campaigns targeting this brand.
Domino’s doesn’t need to copy its competitors’ every move. But it can learn from what other companies are doing right and iterate with a unique Domino’s spin.
The company already thinks of itself as a “tech company that sells pizza.†It’s the kind of game-changing mindset that, when paired with game-changing technologies like AI and ML, will keep Domino’s in the conversation even when it’s not launching a seemingly-crazy campaign.