It shouldn’t have been hard for someone at the top of a major restaurant chain to say, ‘Let’s not go there.’
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A family sits down around a dinner table to share a pizza. A time for warm conversation and domestic bonding? Not quite.
The scene, depicted in Domino’s Pizza’s latest ad campaign, escalates quickly as a father places a pizza box on the table. His son, who appears to be late elementary-school age, picks a topping off the pizza and snarls, “Pineapple!”
The child then crawls across the table to attack his father. The man’s daughter pushes his face into the pizza, and the son hits him over the head with the pizza box. The commercial ends with the mother throwing her partner through a plate-glass window.
Nothing says family like beating up dear ole dad.
Is domestic violence against men more acceptable?
Domino’s executives understand that their new commercial, part of a new campaign, is controversial but defend it as dark humor.
“I’m a firm believer that great advertising is polarizing,” Kate Trumbull, Domino’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, told Marketing Dive. “And if you’re doing advertising that is safe and expected, it certainly won’t break through today with how fragmented media is.”
The media marketplace certainly is fragmented, but does that mean it’s OK to make light of domestic violence?
Good Good Golf recently tried that approach with a disastrous ad that featured a man slamming a woman to the ground. After a swift wave of criticism, the advertising was pulled and the company CEO and president resigned.
Is the Domino’s commercial somehow more acceptable because it shows a man, rather than a woman, being abused by his family?
Domino’s certainly isn’t trying to hide its pitch for pizza served with a side of domestic violence. The campaign was apparently scheduled to be featured on Netflix during the Los Angeles Rams vs. San Francisco 49ers game Sept. 10 in Melbourne, Australia.
It’s scheduled to air again during the Emmy Awards broadcast Sept. 14.
It seems that Domino’s Pizza has a different sense of humor
Perhaps I lack a sense of humor, but I can’t help but think about how survivors of domestic violence will view the commercial when it pops on their TV screens without warning during an NFL game.
That’s not a small group of women or men, of course. In February, the FBI released data on reported domestic violence incidents from 2020 through 2024.
“Over the five-year period studied, the percentage of violent crimes within domestic relationships increased,” the report said. “Law enforcement reported more than 11,000 domestic violence murder victims and an additional 1.1 million victims of domestic violence.”
About 75% of the victims were women, but more than 250,000 of the reported cases involved men who were the targets of physical violence or other forms of domestic abuse. Keep in mind that many cases of domestic violence, about 30 to 50%, are not reported.
It’s not hard to find that information. It’s not hard to consider how families will react to a “humorous” depiction of children assaulting their father and a mother hurling a man through a window. It shouldn’t have been hard for someone at the top of a major restaurant chain to say, “Let’s not go there.”
Sadly, all of that was too hard for Domino’s.
Back in the analog age, Miller Brewing Company produced a series of commercials for Miller Lite that featured famous athletes and other celebrities arguing back and forth: “Tastes great. Less filling.”
Perhaps Domino’s can borrow a page from that playbook for its next campaign:
“Tasteless. Not funny. Tasteless. Not funny.”
Tim Swarens is a former deputy opinion editor for USA TODAY and former opinion editor of The Indianapolis Star.