• Brandweek, Friday, January 23, 2009 11 AM

Domino's president David Brandon set fire to a cease-and-desist letter it had received from Subway during a spot that ran on Fox's "American Idol" Jan. 21, Kenneth Hein reports. The letter states that claims Domino's has been making in its advertising about the superiority of its baked sandwich product line are misleading and that consumer taste tests conducted on behalf of the No. 2 pizza chain are not legitimate.

Brandon had challenged his marketing team and lead agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky to come up with a plan to leverage the letter after it arrived earlier this month. "I said, 'Listen, this is a bit of a swipe at us, suggesting there is an integrity issue around the test we did and how we did. I don't like it,'" Brandon told Hein.

The ad is the latest messaging trumpeting the fact that consumers preferred Domino's new oven-baked sandwiches over Subway's by a margin of two-to-one in a test. Jeff Moody, CEO of the Subway Franchisee Advertising Trust, says, "We don't think the test was legitimate and, therefore, the results are very misleading."

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