Dominos Pranksters Done In By Crowdsourcing
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
Teens have long used YouTube to post videos of themselves doing gags, but in the case of some Dominos employees from North Carolina, uploading clips cost them their jobs in less than a day thanks to the viral power of social media.
Consumer watchdog blog The Consumerist wrote about the clips yesterday, which showed the employees doing gross things to food while on the job; repulsed viewers worked to narrow down the store location, alerted the manager and got in touch with Dominos' corporate office. The two teens took the videos down, but the damage had already been done: this morning, Dominos' VP of communications Tim McIntyre told Consumerist readers via email that the franchise owner would be "terminating their employment today."
It's a testament to how social media can force major corporations to act much faster than they might otherwise in an effort to do damage control. From the "AmazonFail" mess the book retailer is trying to clean up now, to the Twitter firestorm that erupted last November around Motrin's baby-carrier ads (via the NYT), consumers are turning to resources like Twitter, YouTube and blogs to hold companies accountable for their ad campaigns, unruly employees and other actionsand in record time.
Photo Credit: bettybl
By Tameka Kee