A harmless little fun becomes a nasty viral campaign

In my series on the internet and how you nurture your personal brand online I chat about the way our information can move beyond the space where we have posted it. This can happen even if we never intended to find ourselves the subject of a viral campaign.

This is what happened to two employees of Domino’s, the American pizza franchise. Two people took videos of themselves handling the food inappropriately and pretending this would be served to the customer.

It’s possible they played these pranks just to relieve their boredom. Or they could have been malicious towards their boss playing out a vendetta. But in all probability they just thought it funny and didn’t think anything further than having a laugh.

In a public apology the girl apologised for their actions stating that they were having fun, that it was a prank and that they would never dream of showing this kind of video if they were in fact serious.

The videos of the two molesting food and apparently serving it up to customers were posted on YouTube. Within a 24hr period the number of views leapt from 20 000 to 728 816 at the time of the article being written in MarketingVox. I checked now, a few hours later, and another 60 000 have viewed the video.

In the meantime a red strip is shown across the video with the words - They have been fired. Domino’s idea of damage control?

The fall-out of this little caper is heavy for both sides. Two people have become infamous, their names and faces on record for doing something really stupid. The chances of either of them finding employment in the fast food industry are not going to be too promising.

Besides this Domino’s is hauling out the big guns. The two ex-employees might have a criminal complaint against them and Domino’s might sue for defamation.

That’s the fall-out for the two young people who thought they were having some harmless fun. Or so they say. In the meantime, Kristy Hammonds has claimed copyright of the video and YouTube may no longer show it! The plot thickens.

Domino’s on the other hand is furious as they see this an attack on their brand. They feel that the huge amount of advertising that they have spent and continue to spend on creating their brand has been undermined by these employees.

Of course one wonders how fragile a brand is if two employees are able to cause that much supposed damage with a few minutes of video?

Let’s just take a step back and have a look at the situation. I’m going to presume that Kristy and her co-worker Michael were genuinely fooling around, bored with their job and just having some fun to lighten it up. There are all sorts of other possibilities which I’m going to ignore.

What sort of damage have they done to their lives and how much damage has been chalked up in terms of the company they were working for time will only tell. But what started off as a harmless bit of fun will have quite extensive impact on their lives and that of the company they worked for.

Be careful of what you post onto the internet. Your information bits could end up having a whole life of their own. And remember, YouTube is part of the family of Cloud Computing. What you post there might not end up being yours anymore. Although Kristy is claiming copyright, it remains to be seen what the next bit of drama is here.

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