Ithaca College

Cory L. Young, associate professor in Communication Management and Design and chair of the Communication graduate program, and Arhlene A. Flowers, associate professor in Integrated Marketing Communications, published "Fight Viral with Viral: A Case Study of Domino’s Pizza’s Crisis Communication Strategies”  in the December 2012 issue of Case Studies in Strategic Communication (CSSC). CSSC is a peer-reviewed online journal dedicated to the study of strategic communication through the case study form. Case studies illustrate the strategies, tactics, and execution of communication campaigns through in-depth coverage of a single situation. Both Young and Flowers are in the Department of Strategic Communication housed in the Roy H. Park School of Communications.

This article examines Domino’s Pizza’s viral crisis situation when two rogue employees posted videos of adulterated food on YouTube in April 2009. Using a case study approach, this paper assesses Domino’s decision to integrate the same medium that sparked the crisis into the strategies to manage the situation, and it questions the efficacy of best practices and principles of crisis management in the age of social media. It can be downloaded at http://cssc.web.unc.edu/cases/v1/art6/.