Domino's First Brand Refresh In 13 Years Is Bright, Bold, And Kind Of Boring

It has been over a decade since Domino's undertook a full brand refresh, and these are fraught times for such change. But if you fear that the pizza chain might be headed toward the sort of catastrophic feedback that befell Cracker Barrel's recent attempt to change its logo, well, this one definitely isn't going to make the same kind of splash.

Realistically, I eat more Domino's pizza than I would like to admit. So, I've seen a fair number of its boxes and promotional materials over the past 13 years. I even have the rewards account, so I am constantly receiving promotional emails from the company. But if I weren't told that the company was refreshing its branding, I honestly might not have noticed the change at all.

Listed among the new brand elements in Domino's press release are a new "bolder" font, brighter packaging and hotter colors (are those not essentially the same thing?), and what the pizza chain is referring to as both a "name-bending jingle" and a "cravemark," apparently meaning that it hired Shaboozey to cram a couple of extra M's into the middle of the company name. It is not what you would call inspiring stuff. And the numbers that it has attached to show the efficacy of the new look are not inspiring either.

According to the extensive market research conducted during this rebranding campaign, just 67% of individuals prefer the new look, with slightly higher numbers in Gen Z (73%) and Millennials (70%). Of those latter two generational groups, 77% apparently found the new jingle to be "catchy," but catchy is certainly not the same thing as "good" or "enjoyable to listen to." I hesitate to mention any of them by name, lest I inadvertently infect you with an earworm, but there are plenty of "catchy" jingles out there that we would all rather avoid hearing.

Really, this whole rebrand is just a bland attempt at modernizing the look. The pizza boxes have a new look, the brand's color palette has shifted a couple of notches brighter, and there's a new tune meant to make use of Shaboozey's blend of country music and hip-hop to appeal to all audiences. It is totally fine. But from a brand that has been such an innovator in the pizza space, it is also definitely dull.

Domino's introduced the 30-minute delivery rule. It is the restaurant chain that invented the pizza box. And, perhaps most relevant to the current conversation, Domino's used to have a claymation mascot known as the Noid, a bizarre and fun bit of branding that made its way to everything from t-shirts to video games, and even into the Michael Jackson movie "Moonwalker." It can do better.

Right now, Domino's doesn't need to make a splash. It is a dominant force in the pizza business. But this dull refresh is definitely not going down as one of the bigger restaurant rebranding stories.