In October 1985, a teenage Domino’s driver was handed a pizza for delivery just outside Pittsburgh. It had been 23 minutes since the customer placed the order. He needed to hurry.
He accelerated out of the restaurant parking lot and, without yielding, plowed into the car of Frank and Mary Jean Kranack, who suffered injuries. In the moments following the accident, a Domino’s manager allegedly grabbed the pizza from the driver’s car and passed it off to another delivery worker, with a message: There’s still time.
“You had to wonder what kind of pressure was being placed on that manager and on the drivers that they felt compelled to put pizzas over someone’s life,” says the Kranacks’ lawyer, Kenneth Behrend, recalling the incident decades later.
The pressure stemmed from a now-infamous Domino’s marketing campaign: guaranteed pizza delivery in 30 minutes or less.
Notes:
A good rundown of a clever marketing gimmick (pizza delivered in 30-minutes or less, or it’s free) that led to some pretty tragic real-world consequences.
Also: a bit about how these lessons apply to today’s world of gig-workers delivering food from a variety of companies to their customers.
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