Domino’s wants to convince customers that its pizzas are good and it has enlisted the help of Simon Cowell to do it.
The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based pizza chain is featuring the television personality—known for judging talent competitions in the U.S. and the U.K., such as America’s got Talent and The X Factor—in an ad focused on Domino’s commitment to quality.
The idea is to showcase the chain’s insistence on ensuring every pizza is perfect before it goes into the oven.
The ads featuring Cowell started on Monday. Cowell will be “America’s favorite quality captain.” Domino’s says the company now has “quality captains” who ensure that each pizza is made precisely to order before it goes into the oven.
In the ad, Cowell sits with his arms crossed at a counter inside a Domino’s location as three nervous workers hand him uncooked pizzas.
He has a microphone to his left, a Domino’s travel mug to his right, and judges them harshly. “Topping distribution: Horrible,” he says. “Terrible. Pathetic. I hate it.”
The workers thank him, and then he praises the next iteration. “It’s a yes.”
“He has an eye for detail and demands perfection when it comes to making mouthwatering pizzas, too,” Kate Trumbull, Domino’s chief brand officer, said in a statement. “Domino’s has a longstanding history of making sure each pizza is delicious, but now we’re taking operational excellence to the next level.”
Domino’s has long marketed its technology as well as its ordering channels to get customers to order, with considerable success.
But the company under CEO Russell Weiner now wants to focus more of its marketing on the quality of its pizzas. “We have the most delicious food,” Weiner said in May. “But people don’t think of us for that. So we need to go about changing that.”
Frank Garrido, Domino’s chief restaurant officer, said in a statement that the company has made various operational enhancements over the years. “Every order counts,” he said. “That includes checking pizza toppings before they go into the oven, to confirming each order has all of its items, down to each dipping cup.”
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