BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

Fresh on the heels of a social media blitz that forced Amazon.com into a difficult situation earlier this week, Domino' s Pizza is now facing an extra-large reputational crisis of its own - thanks to two former employees that posted a YouTube video of themselves doing some pretty unappetizing things to pizza' s sold for consumption.

Thanks to the viral nature of the digital realm, the video shot to 760,000 views within the first 24 hours - due in large part to the blogosphere firestorm that the video set off.

In an interview I gave to AdAge today, I noted that it' s not surprising that Domino' s acted quickly to fire the employees, file a criminal complaint, and have arrest warrants issued. That' s a decent start - but once the employees were out the door, Domino' s primary goal should have been to contain the brand damage by engaging its customers in the very medium that gave rise to the crisis in the first place.

Domino' s would be wise to counter with a YouTube video of its own - featuring CEO David Brandon or the company' s head of food safety issuing a brief apology and then moving on to what Domino' s is doing ensure that nothing even close to this ever happens again.

System-wide retraining of 145,000 employees needs be highlighted. Changes in policy and food safety leadership need to be articulated (if, in fact, they are taking place). And, most important, those messages need to be targeted to the three-quarters of a million people that viewed the ghastly video in the last day alone. That means taking to YouTube as soon as is humanly possible.

This kind of crisis plays on the public' s worst fears and could potentially get a whole worse if Domino' s doesn' t show the same sense of urgency in communicating commitment, concern, and action that it did in bringing the alleged culprits to justice.

Domino' s has done a good job of identifying the bad actors and separating itself from the criminal acts they committed. But now, it' s time to get the company' s messages out where its audiences can see them - preferably in 30 minutes or less.