“Paving For Pizza” isn’t a joke.
If you listen to green-hued corporate city sponsors, the Glass City is paved with opportunities.
And if you listen to Domino’s®, the Glass City’s roads are soon to be paved with asphalt, thanks to a new ‘public works’ campaign, “Paving For Pizza.”
On Tuesday, September 25, the Toledo City Council unanimously approved a $10,000 donation from Domino’s Pizza to help finish the construction on the stretch of the Anthony Wayne Trail between Glendale and the Maumee city limits. While the project was set to be done this summer, the road construction is unfinished and has been in progress for nearly a year.
Domino’s dubs the “Paving For Pizza” project as a way to help people eat better pizza, saying:
“Potholes, cracks, and bumps in the road can cause irreversible damage to your pizza during the drive home from Domino’s. We can’t stand by and let your cheese slide to one side, your toppings get un-topped, or your boxes flipped.” (pavingforpizza.com)
So kind.
Better yet, like a true corporate angel, Domino’s pledges that they “won’t stop until we’ve paved in all 50 states.”
Let’s crunch the numbers.
If all 50 states received $10,000 from Domino’s, the corporation is looking at a $500,000 bill— 0.00008196721% of the corporation’s $6.1B enterprise value, according to Forbes, and 0.00012562814% of their $39.8M advertising costs last year, according to the Domino’s Pizza 2017 annual report.
For comparison, Domino’s spent $10M in charitable donations during 2017— “Paving For Pizza,” a campaign not included, would represent 0.5% of that budget.
Do those numbers seem small? Well, it’s also worth noting that many cities are receiving $5,000, not $10,000, from Domino’s. So, shrink ’em just a little more.
To clarify, we agree with Domino’s— ”Bad Roads Shouldn’t Happen To Good Pizza”— but we do wonder if letting our roads get paved with pepperoni for the benefit of a corporate advertising campaign is worth the dough.
Toledo’s roads, like many in the country, are in need of serious help. The National Transportation Research Group reports that 37% of America’s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, but will Domino’s campaign help American drivers more than it will allow the company to demonstrate a social conscience?
Whatever the case, it’s uniquely disappointing to know that a corporation can easily boost their self-image at a low cost just by stepping in where the government fails.
What do you think? Are you just excited for smoother roads in a small area of town, or do you find “Paving For Pizza” to be as hard to stomach as the company’s ill-fated bread bowls? RIP.
Learn more about Paving For Pizza, and even find some coupons for cheap pizza (holy shit, of course, they would), by visiting pavingforpizza.com.
