Domino’s Pizza Trashes Alaska Seafood
Why do you hate Alaska, Domino’s pizza?
The new “Powered by Pizza” ad campaign for Domino’s Pizza asserts that good ideas and American innovation begin over pizza. It’s the food of brainstorming sessions, cutting-edge garage bands, and geeky future startup pioneers.
Domino’s isn’t really my thing, but it’s a clever, upbeat sort of ad—something a little different, and inoffensive. Or so I thought. They seem to have taken a cue from our former half-term governor who isn’t content to simply promote her own ideas, but must also create a fictitious “evildoer” to knock down in the process. And we, on the Last Frontier, are not pleased with their choice.
Not only, they say, do brilliant ideas happen over pizza, but they DON’T happen over this other food; a food so evil, it sucks the genius directly out of your cerebral cortex; the antithesis of all that is creative, and American, and good; the anti-pizza. This food hates capitalism so much, and is so horrible, so disgusting that it cannot even be swallowed; it must be spat out into the dish from whence it came. That’s how revolting is …
Halibut.
Eating halibut, according to Domino’s, is the gastronomic equivalent of pallin’ around with terrorists.
“No one’s coming up with a world-changing idea over halibut,” snarks the announcer, with a wrinkled nose, and derogatory tone, “No way.”
It should be said that I didn’t read about this ad campaign somewhere, or hear about it on social media. No, this little gem was delivered right to me in my Anchorage, Alaska living room via the television set.
Um, Domino’s? We can hear you up here.
And by the way, the sweet white manna from the sea, for many of us, is our favorite food. In addition to the perennial classic recipes – beer battered, Olympia, and Poor Man’s Lobster, Alaskans eat halibut in chowder, off the grill, on a bun, smoked, in tacos, and yes… on PIZZA.
Halibut pizza from the Stikine Inn in Wrangell, Alaska.
Alaskans’ passion for the tender white flatfish should not be underestimated. We love it so much, we go and catch it ourselves. A commercial fishery makes sure that those in the Lower 48 can enjoy our succulent bounty too. Charter services, those small mom and pop businesses America and Domino’s love so much, are built around taking locals and tourists alike out into our icy waters for the experience of a lifetime. A few hours and a beautiful drive south of Anchorage, you’ll find this sign welcoming you to Homer, Alaska, Halibut Fishing Capital of the World on the shores of Kachemak Bay. There’s even a derby.
We take it seriously. And you, Domino’s, have made it personal.
While Domino’s is busy celebrating America, and job creation, and looking for a “bad guy” as a food foil, why are they picking on a great wild Alaskan fishery – one of the few things we have left in this country that can’t be outsourced to China? And Alaskan halibut is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, garnering a “Best Choice” designation from Seafood Watch! Perhaps they came up with their campaign of personal destruction during a brainstorming meeting over… I dunno… pizza.
So, yes Domino’s. If I actually patronized your establishment, I would revel in telling you how I would never darken your door again. But I will have to leave it to those Alaskans who have a penchant for chain store pizza to decide on their course of action. All I can do is raise my voice in defense of the ugliest, most delicious, (and now) most maligned fish on national television.
We Alaskans will not stand by while our homely jewel of the deep is cast as the villain in your despicable plot to further the spread of mass-produced corporate “pizza.” We will not allow the sullying of the good name of “Halibut” to go unchallenged, simply to give the fast food overlords a convenient scapefish to demonize, while they clog our arteries and destroy our pancreases with their refined white flour, greasy meat byproducts, and processed “cheese.”
Heck, we wouldn’t even use that as bait.
UPDATE: Domino’s has apologized to Alaska, and the fishing industry. But should the ad be pulled? READ HERE.
Lovely pictures of halibut fish and fishing set to music,for your listening pleasure? Don’t thank me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRV03zQkBas
Thanks, Mike!
hahahahahacawcawcaw
Oh hell,mikey is heartbroken. I read about Dominos apology and found the halibut song. I remember a song from long ago that had halibut mentioned,just not as a noun. Here are the lyrics. http://www.songlyrics.com/kip-addotta/wet-dream-lyrics/
Kinda funny in a suggestive way.
[[There rilly needs to be a “boo, hiss” button… That was bad, mike from iowa, rill bad (and I don’t just say that for the halibut). Bad, bad, bad. beth.]]
You gonna smack mikey with a rolled up newspaper?
You got to admit, though, the name channels the 4-year old in all of us and it tickles us, no? Big time, no? I mean, Halibut! What’s not to giggle about? Butt! The fish’s name has “butt” in it. And it also channels the 7-year old in all of us and our inner playground snickering starts up, no? Hell-a-butt! The fish’s name is a two-fer! “hell” AND “butt”…Old Mrs. Franklin is a Hell-a-butt! ::the 7-yo you dissolves in body-shaking silent guffaws::
So, yeah, the name is funny! And it sells because it’s funny. Personally, I’ve still got my prior 4-yo and 7-yo hanging out in me, so whenever I hear the word “halibut’, I chuckle to myself. Quietly, mind you, but I do chuckle. Dang, the name is funny! Halibut! Odd thing about halibut for me, though…when I think of it as food, I somehow ‘divorce’ the name from the oh-so-tasty fish. Halibut, the word, chuckles me greatly; halibut, the food, is delicious and I’m already craving the next piece of it… Yes, I’m weird that way. beth.
Halibut tacos, halibut and chips, halibut pizza, herb crusted halibut, BBQed halibut, grilled halibut…
Yum, yum, yum.
More halibut tacos…
Sorry Dominos.
All that crapola about creativity and your soggy pretend pizza?
Match my mother’s people and their kayaks and come to think of it, the old ways they came up with to catch halibut…
http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/cafe/upload/Heart-of-the-Halibut-Merculieff-2.pdf
You are thousand of years too late and halibut fueled those brainstorms 🙂
Doofs.
Take that Dominos. Like to see you feed your family for a whole year with one pizza. Pizza steak and pizza soup sound awful. Pizza Shmizza!
That was a really lovely story. I quit eating seafood (apart from sea vegetables, which I love) many, many moons ago, although it was the very last flesh I ever ate. I believe I’ve never tasted halibut. I’ve had Domino’s pizza exactly once in my life, without the cheese and with every vegetable they stocked, while vacationing in Florida in the late 1980s. It wasn’t, and isn’t real pizza. And everyone knows fish, not pizza, is brain food. Thanks for that link, Pi. Very moving story.
I love Pi.
l’dor v’dor
from generation to generation
many thanks for sharing
{{{{{Pi}}}}}
Halibut is great, but I’d rather it suffer the occasional insult than see the Noid.
HEY NOW! Domino’s was our favorite pizza back in the early 70’s !! we’d get all messed up and order it rather than stagger out to the car and risk an accident going out for Mulligans(White Castle) burgers – 5 cents each, take a bag full home!. Of course, the first thing we did was flip it upside down so most of the grease would get soaked up by the box…… went really good with Old Milwaukee Beer… College students didn’t have enough money for any high class beer back then…
mikey drank gallons of Hanley Lager-89 cents a six pack,also drank lots of Fallflat(Falstaff) at about $1.50 a 12 pack. Old Mil was premo stuff considering….back when I wuz young and dumb.
I watched the commercial and they didn’t mention anything about “Alaaaskan Halibut”, Sarah. There are plenty of fish in the sea.
Domino’s wouldn’t know delicious food if it bit them on the butt. Halibut is delicious.
But I wouldn’t consider it the ugliest fish.
In fact, I think this calls for an Ugliest Fish competition. AKM has nominated the halibut. Slipstream nominates this whatever-it-is:
http://tinyurl.com/mlzl6fy
Okay, your turn.
It’s called a blobfish, and yes, it’s quite hideous in a charming sort of way.
Wait . . . were you talking about me or about the fish?
The FISH, of course. Slipstream, on the other hand, is quite charming, in a hideous sort of way. 😉 😛 😉 etc.
Rilly looks like Jabba Hut Pizza. W/O tasting it I can assure you it is better than Dominos. Dominos does not have a complaint e-mail unless you don’t like the pizza you ordered or the service you got. At least I couldn’t find one.
Whoa! That looks like a cousin of the Irish Lord fish.
Ever seen a ling cod?
Plus, bonus points for flesh tinted light green. Mmmmmmm….prepared Shanghai style, it broke da mouf.
oooohhhh.
green tinted ling.
1st fish I caught in salt water as a kid though big enough Pop had to help me at the end.
9 years old , sick as could be in the skiff.(Pop wasn’t so happy about that part)
happiest kid in the world with my fish, happier yet at dinner
I thought it was a beeyoutiful fish 🙂
You want ugly fish?
Here ya go, by no fault of its own, bless its heart.
http://tinyurl.com/c4w7ktf
Halibut, however, now that’s a Homer-un.
😉 Get it? Halibut? Homerun?
Okay, so I’m not quite ready for high school,
because now I’m remembering $omeone clubbing a halibut with a baseball bat,
and that’s not where I was headed at all.
Let’s blame it on the heat, and on the humidity also, too, shall we?
tcw
I’m sorry, when did we run out of real problems in this country? Shut up and get on with your lives. Quit pretending to be outraged over trivial things. No one can take a goddamn joke anymore. Christ. Also Jeanne I do not mean to attack your character because I don’t know you, but from this article you sound like the person everyone sees at the party and goes “Really? Who invited her?”
Pffft!
Afraid you’d be the one I’d run from at a party.
You don’t think advertising is a real problem?
That marketing doesn’t affect peoples’ attitudes and behavior?
That “clever” campaigns don’t have unpleasant side effects on other things?
“Advertising plays a major role in modern life. It
shapes the attitudes of the society and the
individual and inevitably influences customer
behaviour. ”
http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/CIBIMA/volume3/v3n7.pdf
There’s a huge industry out there studying and planning and working at seperating people from their $$s with no damn thought about anything else which might fall by the wayside and this stoopid ad is part of it.
Add in
http://www.academia.edu/184612/The_Impact_of_Repetition-Induced_Familiarity_on_Agreement_With_Weak_and_Strong_Arguments
and presto! volia! and all other !!!ed exclamations and you have big business framing waaayyy too much of what we call culture. THAT is a big problem.
IF they want to demonize, they should pick on McDonalds hamburgers, or ANY fast food burgers, really. Or any fast food. Oh, whoops, that would mean they would be dissing themselves. Guess not…
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=282738521867456&set=a.174667692674540.40864.174666972674612&type=1&theater