Business

Too Kinky for Domino's: Firm Is Pained By Leaked Bondage Ad

January 29, 2015, 10:18 PM by  Alan Stamm

It's a pizza ad Bob Bashara would like, but Domino's doesn't -- even though its own agency created it.

A tongue trussed up in leather, wrist manacles and chains seems like "a parody of the highly anticipated 'Fifty Shades of Grey' movie," Katrease Stafford notes at the start of a Free Press article about the ad at right.

According to Tim McIntyre, vice president of communications, the ad is real, but it was not approved by the company. McIntyre said the ad was created by an ad agency, which pitched it to a franchisee in Tel Aviv, Israel. . . . 

The franchisee’s marketing manager rejected the ad. . . . The ad was leaked somehow and began circulating on the internet early this week. The ad has since been linked to the McCann-Erickson ad agency, a global advertising agency network.

From the pizza chain's Ann Arbor headquarters, the public relations executive describes the edgy graphic as "ill-advised and inappropriate."

The overly creative team at McCann-Erickson has some client damage control ahead, judging by how McIntyre cracks the whip:

“This is not appropriate for our brand,” he tells Stafford. “It has nothing to do with pizza. We’re less concerned about the fact it leaked, than the fact it was created in the first place. . . . It was almost shocking for shocking sake.”

In other words: Too super-spicy and hot, any way you slice it.


Read more:  Detroit Free Press


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