Domino’s keeps giving away free pizza as part of its Hungry for MORE strategy—and that keeps pushing sales higher, according to one of the chain’s top executives. So don’t expect the world’s No. 1 pizza chain to hit the brakes in 2025.
Domino’s launched its Emergency Pizza program in October 2023, promising a free pizza when customers needed it the most (cooking fails, power outages or unexpected guests, for example). Above all, though, the program aimed to boost membership in Domino’s loyalty program and build top-of-mind awareness. Customers had to place a digital carryout order and sign into or join Domino Rewards to take advantage of the deal. And, if all went according to Domino’s plan, they’d get hooked.
And, to hear the brand’s leadership tell it, they did.
Domino’s expanded the program that same year to entice customers coping with student loans, then brought it back again several times in 2024, always targeting a new niche audience. In October 2024, the Emergency Pizza offer included a pizza-themed manicure kit from Olive & June and was also incorporated into the Fortnite game, “The Glitch,” in a partnership with Amazon and Twitch. Then, in December of last year, Domino’s gave away a year of free Emergency Pizza to players with the lowest score from each competing group in the Manhattan-based Squid Game: The Experience just as season 2 of the popular Netflix show, Squid Game, was set to drop.
Domino’s wrapped up 2024 with another Emergency Pizza promo for fantasy football fans in a collab with NFL wide receiver Stefon Diggs.
“We try to get across to different audiences,” Kate Trumbull, Domino’s chief marketing officer, explained in a recent interview with MarketingDive.com. “We had Amazon-Twitch’s ‘The Glitch’ to reach gamers, and then we went into the beauty space with Olive & June.”
The Stefon Diggs promotion, which promised $1 million in free pizza, tickled fantasy football players’ tummies, “and the numbers are crazy,” Trumbull said.
Domino’s franchisees, meanwhile, have been happily going along for the ride, she told Marketing Dive. “Everything we do, we partner with our franchisees,” she said. “Bringing our franchise board through it, they see the bigness of this message. We did it the first time, and it had strong results in Q4 of 2023: positive same-store sales, a lot of earned media impressions, and [franchisees] felt it in their business. We came to them and said, ‘There are these new audiences we want to reach in really creative ways.’ I think that they saw the potential.”
Since its inception, the Emergency Pizza giveaway has spurred growth in Domino’s loyalty program. During a Q4 2023 earnings call last February, Domino’s CEO Russell Weiner hailed the first iteration as a “resounding success,” noting the addition of 2 million new loyalty members, especially after Domino’s also relaunched the loyalty program in September 2023, making it significantly easier to earn rewards.
“A big driver of the increase in active members, as well as the early success of the program, was our Emergency Pizza promotion, which was an innovative marketing initiative that drove increased order counts and acquisition of customers into Domino’s Rewards,” Weiner told investors at that time. “We’re seeing more redemptions than ever before, and we’re seeing them at those lower tiers that we implemented. And we know that this program has driven incremental profit dollars for our franchisees. So customers are getting more, and franchisees have earned more profits. Truly a win-win. Finally, we’re seeing more carryout users and light users in the program than we were prior to the relaunch. So Domino’s Rewards is working as we intended.”
As 2025 kicks into gear, Trumbull said, Domino’s fans—and its competitors in the independent pizzeria space—can expect more promotions to come.
“We’ve done a lot of smart things foundationally, but I really am excited to amp up innovation,” Trumbull said in the Marketing Dive interview. “I think that’s always the right place to invest, and not just innovation on the product side with exciting news but also tech innovation. Over 85% of our sales are on e-commerce, and that’s a place that we have always invested. You’re going to see more exciting innovation from us in that space, too.”
