I have seen the new commercials for the Domino's Pizza's "Kids love pizza" campaign.
In the commercials a man and a woman take a bunch of Domino's pizza boxes to a nursery school class. The kids are excited: Hey! Who doesn't love pizza?
But suddenly the excitement turns into horror. The pizza is not "Kids" pizza but "Grown Ups" pizza with, among other ingredients, peppers and onions (cut to a close up of a little girl making a disgusted face).
The tag line let us know that (to make everyone happy) if you order a "grown up" pizza you'll get a medium "kids" pizza for five bucks. The last image shows us that a kids pizza is, was and always will be a pepperoni pizza!
Great commercials and a great promotion, thanks to the geniuses at Domino's Pizza's marketing office (yes, I'm being sarcastic).
Great message too: kids should only be exposed to the classic American kids food groups. Grilled cheese sandwich, chicken nuggets, PJ sandwich and... pepperoni pizza.
Is that really what the geniuses at Domino's Pizza want for our kids? Is this how they envision a generation who should know as much as possible about fresh, good and different foods?
Don't they have children themselves? Don't they want their own children to experience new flavors? Learn to love veggie and fresh ingredients? Don't you, geniuses at Domino's Pizza, have somewhat a small responsibility toward our future generation's health? We all want to make a buck but come on!
I make pizza with children all the time, from preschoolers to teenagers. I always encourage the use of fresh vegetable toppings and most of the time kids go for them and love them. The hope is that, maybe next time they'll eat their veggies even if they're not on a pizza pie. It's a way to familiarize them to new flavors.
Dear geniuses at Domino's Pizza, here's a suggestion for the next campaign targeted to kids: market new eating habits, promote curiosity and please, stop perpetrating the crime and join the revolution!
You know as well as I know that the way you present things to children is key to their reaction. I promise you: bring the cameras to one of my pizza making classes and you'll see kids reacting differently from the ones you showed in your commercial.
Yes! It's a challenge.