Pizza Hut, possibly taking a lesson from Domino's, to hire Twintern

So this tickled me a bit. After the devastating YouTube video that will possibly forever link Domino's with food desecration, we get this announcement from Pizza Hut, which appears to be trying to shape up its social media presence in a hurry. Ta-da! The Pizza Hut Twintern will begin June 1 and “bring an outside perspective” to promotions, tweet about pop-culture news of interest to Pizza Hut consumers, and monitor Twitter for negative communications. Pizza Hut insists its program was developed before the Domino's fiasco.

The Twintern role was initially pitched by the Zeno Group, Pizza Hut's PR agency of record. The Twintern position will also be used to create an authentic voice that college students can identify with, and to provide an outsider's perspective of how the company works.

“Right now, there may be emerging media, [college students are using], we're not aware of,” said a Pizza Hut PR manager. “That's why we want someone from that age group to fill that role and keep an eye on what's coming up as well as what's popular right now.”

Hopefully the new Twintern will bring some pizazz to the company's boring Twitter feed, http://twitter.com/pizzahut.

-Adrianne (@msfener)

Disgusting Domino's People: When social media crisis strikes

There are many constructive reasons to get involved in social media -- connect with customers, do market research, and reach out to the younger generation of consumers. But there are companies who still say, "Social media won't work for us -- why should we pay any attention to it?" Here's why. Last week, two Domino's employees video-taped themselves doing unspeakable things to ingredients before putting them in a customer's pizza -- and put it on YouTube. "In about five minutes these will be sent out and somebody will be eating these -- yes, eating these," one employee says in the video. "And little do they know that the cheese was in his nose and that there was some lethal gas that ended up on their salami. Now that's how we roll at Domino's." As one spokesperson for Domino's said, "Any idiot with a webcam and an internet connection can attempt to undo all that's right about the brand." Dominos has 125,000 employees in 60 countries and a loyal following, but two immature employees and one three-minute video did arguably irreversible damage to the brand. It was only one video, but how long do you think the association between Domino's and idiot employees doing nasty things to food can last? We're betting the stigma will be around for a long time. So the lesson is this -- you may not think social media is the most productive venue for your company's brand, but it can't be ignored. Domino's only got around to creating a Twitter account the day after this crisis broke -- and the company's public statements about it made it obvious that it had never occurred to them to do so before. If Domino's had a handle on what was going on in the social media world, they would have been monitoring YouTube for Domino's-related videos and been able to get the video removed and the employees fired before it spread virally. Catherine Taylor chastises Domino's for dropping the ball in this MediaPost article.

-Adrianne (@msfener)