Dive Brief:
- Domino's launched a TV campaign that draws on pop culture nostalgia to promote the brand's new Pie Pass technology, per a company announcement.
- The lead spot uses archival footage from the television show "Cheers," which aired from 1982 to 1993. In the ad, the character Norm, played by George Wendt, descends the stairs into a modern Domino's, reflecting how he entered the titular bar from the sitcom. Norm goes up to the Domino's counter and is surprised to find that nobody knows his name, a subversion of a line in the television show's theme song.
- The creative links to Pie Pass, which lets consumers that place orders online or via the Domino's app to pick up their food without waiting in line. Before entering a store, customers can check in on the Domino's tracker or confirmation page and the in-store digital menu board will welcome the guest by name.
Dive Insight:
By integrating footage from the iconic '80s TV show "Cheers," Domino's seeks to stoke consumers' nostalgia for past pop culture. Leaning into beloved sitcoms is an increasingly common tactic among marketers, but Domino's has threaded a clearer link between "Cheers" — the eponymous bar where "everybody knows your name," per the show's theme song — to its digital Pie Pass offering.
The spot aims to engage consumers on an emotional level by repurposing the classic line from the "Cheers" and using it to advertise a key feature of Pie Pass. Norm, a fan favorite on "Cheers," is the only person in the creative whose name the Domino's employees don't know because he didn't make an order online (Obviously, "Cheers"-era Norm predates that type of tech).
Domino's is not the first fast food chain to recently tap into TV nostalgia in its advertising. KFC hired actor Jason Alexander, best known for his role as George Costanza on the sitcom "Seinfeld," to fill in as Colonel Sanders two years ago. Alexander portrayed "Family Colonel" in the "What's for Dinner?" campaign that parodied the style of sitcoms from the '80s and '90s.
Similarly, beer maker Heineken used actors Angela Kinsey and Brian Baumgartner, also known as Angela and Kevin from the NBC series "The Office," to star in a campaign promoting an alcohol-free beer called Heineken 0.0 last year. For the "Bring Your Beer to Work Day" push, the two actors visited real offices of the television show's fans, delivering them beer.
Domino's Pie Pass technology is the latest mobile-driven development from the brand that's produced other innovative offerings like the Pizza Tracker, Hotspots, an artificial intelligence-powered pizza scanner and more.
Among restaurant chains, Domino's was an early leader in developing proprietary mobile tech and focusing its business on e-commerce. While that put the marketer ahead of rivals like Pizza Hut for several years, Domino's has been disrupted by the surge in third-party ordering platforms like DoorDash and Grubhub. The company has continued to resist turning to outside partners, however, instead focusing on the internal development and marketing of products like Pie Pass.
