On Madmen last season, an account director told a client that their sales growth was coming from “the negro market”. The client, a maker of television sets, was neither surprised by this information, nor inclined to follow the agency’s seemingly logical recommendation that they market to African-American buyers.  Acknowledging who really buys their TVs would be bad for their brand image and, presumably, sales. Or so they think. While the example wouldn’t be acceptable now, this type of secret dissonance between how brands represent themselves and market reality is often where the best marketing/advertising ideas are hiding. Take Domino’s, for example.

For years they combined fast delivery, value and taste claims. When the half-hour guarantee became legally problematic, taste began to take a larger role in their advertising. But the truth about the brand was they were fast, cheap, easy…but the pizza wasn’t terribly tasty. Domino’s new TV and digital campaign let’s that “secret” out of the delivery bag.  It acknowledges the reality with harsh quotes (tastes like cardboard comes to mind), and offers a solution (new recipes), with the theme line “Oh Yes We Did!”

The campaign doesn’t focus on the areas where brand image and reality coincide — fast delivery and low price. It takes on on the product “secret”, by improving the pizza and acknowledging what people really thought of the old taste. And the interest created by letting the secret out can be indulged through more in-depth information (including consumer comments) on the Domino’s site. Along the way, we hear from the chefs and see the new tastier pizzas being made. What’s still left unsaid, wisely, is that the new taste doesn’t have to be great. Just better, as long as it’s still fast and cheap. That’s an example of how a certain gap between reality and perception can be a good and necessary thing. But when it goes to far the brand is likely to go the way of American-made TVs — extinct.