Domino's Employee Video Taints Food and Brand

April 16, 2009— -- When videos of employees violating a host of public health laws hit the Internet and went viral, Domino's Pizza knew it was facing a public relations crisis capable of damaging its well-known and well-regarded brand in a matter of days.

Through Twitter, blogs and YouTube, the videos had been viewed by millions of people, highlighting the power of social media to tarnish a 50-year-old brand virtually overnight.

Domino's was the latest company to be on the wrong end of a "Twitter storm," a spontaneously formed digital mob that rapidly shares information. The company's swift response to the employees and its wider customer base, using the same Web sites and media that spread the video, has been praised by observers who nevertheless wonder if the company can emerge unscathed.

Shot by one employee, the video depicted another worker in the kitchen of a Conover, N.C. franchise putting cheese in his nose, blowing mucous on a sandwich and a putting a sponge he would use to wash dishes between his buttocks.

"This is Michael's special Italian sandwich," said Michael Setzer, 32, on the video, before taking a piece of mozzarella cheese from his nose and putting it on a sandwich.

Setzer and his colleague Kristy Hammonds, 31, who shot the video and posted it online, both were arrested and charged with food tampering, a felony in North Carolina. The store at which they worked was shut down to be restaffed and disinfected, according to a company spokesman.

Calls made to Setzer and Hammonds by ABCNews.com were not returned.

The digital mob played a role in alerting the company to the errant employees and tracking down their identities. Readers of the consumer affairs blog consumerist.com, which posted the video early in the week, tracked Hammonds down through her YouTube account and identified the store from matching an exterior shot in a video with an image on Google maps.

"With customers' help, we were able to find the store identify the people involved," said Domino's spokesman Tim McIntyre. "By Tuesday, we had contacted the franchise owner, given him the info we had and told him to take quick and decisive action."