No matter how you slice it—or whatever other pizza-related pun you’d care to employ—in 2008, the future was looking grim for Domino’s. The company’s stock price had dipped below $3 a share. Sales had fallen for several years in a row.
Its pizza—consistently ranked dead last among national brands—had become the butt of jokes on late-night TV and social media. In focus groups, consumers compared its crust to cardboard, its sauce to ketchup.
Jump ahead to 2020: the Domino’s stock price closed out the year at more than $383—a 9,834% increase. The brand that had been in crisis had become a success story—and it was due, in large part, to a brash marketing campaign conceived by Russell Weiner ’90, then its chief marketing officer.
The Arts & Sciences alum is now the company’s CEO. And in the years since he helped spearhead its remarkable turnaround, he has regularly returned to the Hill to share his wisdom with MBA students.
During the fall 2024 semester, the former government major addressed a packed lecture hall as a guest speaker for a marketing class taught by Prof. Kaitlin Woolley ’12. Cornellians sat in—and, like all good students, we took notes.
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