We should all be taking a few tips on how to turn around a bad reputation from Domino’s Pizza at the moment. The story begins with the infamous ‘bogey’ incident, in which two members of staff filmed themselves doing unspeakable things to a pizza before sending it out for delivery. The clip found its way to YouTube, of course, and trial by social media found the brand guilty as charged.

Though a video apology (à la JetBlue, and now Eurostar) was posted immediately stating that the employees had been fired and the food not served, Domino’s President Patrick Doyle gave a somewhat shifty performance. Unfortunately, the apology caused even more commentary about the company, some of it extremely unflattering.

In an attempt to make good, the brand has just launched pizzaturnaround.com, based on the premise that the company has faced its critics and reinvented its pizza from the crust up.

Presented as the result of hard work into listening to its customers, the launch of the new, improved pizza actually falls in line with Domino’s 50th anniversary and includes several direct links to order. But that’s not a bad thing, it’s just smart marketing and is subtle enough to make the site still seem credible.

Though it also pulls in mentions of the brand on Twitter, and links to a Facebook group (which in the giddy heights of 2010 will inevitably soon be seen as passé), it’s the video itself that’s so impressive. The opening sequence contains tweets such as; “Dominos tastes like cardboard” and shows staff printing other comments and focus group findings to hang on the walls of Domino’s HQ. The clip then goes on to show the chefs that create the recipes working on a ‘new taste’, and one of them delivering the latest offering to one of the more negative participants from one of the group sessions.

Dirk Singer, head of Cow Digital, saw the agency’s client Burger King face a similar situation in the US last year as the company had to fire an employee for making a video while bathing  in the restaurant’s kitchen sink, before uploading it to MySpace. “This was a huge risk on Domino’s part. Especially as this campaign was online and social-media led, it has opened them up to some fairly vocal comments from people who don’t actually think the new pizzas are any improvement on the old. It’s also made them a target from a small, but loud, minority on social networks who will sabotage any kind of brand efforts of this sort.”

However, making the clip personal and delivering a new pizza by hand to a woman called Adrian as mentioned above, shows a certain level of understanding for the social media space being about one-to-one conversation. Though the campaign is US-focused for the time being, the trickle down effect will inevitably reach Europe and beyond soon enough, and we’re certain to see more on this according to the ominous ‘to be continued’ sign-off on the video clip. Time will tell whether Domino’s has done – or is doing- enough to turn things around completely.