Traditional Advertising is DEAD!

The other night I noticed a pizza commercial on TV. Normally I wouldn't notice such a thing, but this commercial was different.  The pizza executives at Domino's were sitting around a conference table listening to people complain about how their pizza sucked. The focus groups said the crust tasted like cardboard and the sauce tasted like catsup.

I thought this was like one of those cell phone commercials for Verizon and AT&T go at each other explaining why the others' network really sucks. So I assumed that this must be a competing pizza maker running the ad. In fact, it was not.  It was Domino's commercial and they were talking about how their own pizza was bad.

Then they went on the show delicious pizza, explaining how they could talk about their pizza badly because they have completely changed it. They started using better ingredients in the pizza, and it tasted really good now. They said that you should try it.

The bottom line is, Domino's pizza got my attention!

That would've never happened before.  This commercial illustrates what the book by Seth Godin, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable , is all about. It's a quick read and very entertaining too. The book explains how you need to be thinking about your marketing, if you want to stand out today and in the future. The old ways of marketing are dead. Check out the book.

Update: After I posted this, I saw Cramer's Mad money where he said these commercials had really put Domino's back on top of the pizza wars.  I also showed a clip of Conan O'Brian making jokes about these new commercials- Obviously they are working and providing a lot of additional free exposure for Domino's.