I wonder if maybe you just looked at the comments and missed the above post?
(I talk about the Verizon/AT&T battle pretty extensively)

That'd be really funny if that is the case.

Anyway, Verizon is only showing a map of AT&Ts 3G coverage, which AT&T argues that Verizon is implying that they don't even cover these areas (a fair argument). They obviously do, but it's just 2G (Edge). The courts sided with Verizon on this.

One thing I actually overlooked (haha) is how all of this really exposes how irrelevant Sprint/Nextel has become.

I remember when pretty much everyone rocked a Sprint phone. Now? Puh.

And Nextel... where to start? If you're getting chirped anywhere outside of a construction site, I think you need to take a serious look at your life and decide what you are doing and why you haven't reevaluated your cell contract in the last 6 years.

Verizon would have you believe that west of the Mississippi your chances of a clear signal with AT&T (perhaps outside of California) are basically non-existent. Are you serious? So AT&T, the the carrier with arguable the most popular cell phone EVER isn't giving service to roughly one half of the country?? Please.

The other side is equally ridiculous. AT&T wants us to believe that using/transferring to Verizon will leave you incapable of surfing the web while in the middle of a phone call. First of all, I think I've needed to do this maybe twice in my entire life, but the point is that I have Verizon, and I'VE DONE THIS!!

Frankly my view is that both companies have hurt themselves by trying to make the other look inferior, although with the amount of oblivious couch potatoes in the U.S. it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of viewers didn't pick up on this, even with how easy it is to see through both campaigns.

I'm going to order some Domino's next week. I bet it's still delicious, and I bet I can't even tell you what's different about it, and I bet you I don't care either way.

What's crazy is that there is only one Papa Johns in the entire city of Chicago, and it's not close (at all) to any of the neighborhoods where young post-college types live. Same thing with Pizza Hut. And there are only two Taco Bells that I am aware of (one is right next to Wrigley and it's 24 hours, so I suppose that's pretty good).

This has always stumped me. How is that possible? You would think that any of those chains could make a killing here.

Anyway, more to the point... I was happy to hear what you said, Jeremiah, because that's interesting. Domino's is basically alienating their customer base that was perfectly happy with their product before. Now they're effectively telling people "You were eating (and enjoying) bad pizza all those years". Seems like a risky move.

On the whole, Domino's just seems really confused about how to position itself.

Domino's new ad campaign is indeed mystifying, especially for someone like myself who like Domino's pizza just fine. For all the many differences between the chains that have already been pointed out and the marketing strategies identified, the whole thing is very simple for me.

Papa John's - delicious cheesy bread
Pizza Hut - amazing lunch buffet (not offered anywhere in NYC therefore I don't even pay attention to the Hut anymore)
Domino's - Twofer Tuesday coupon and online Pizza Tracker delivery system

Honestly, on food alone, I don't really care which place I'm eating from. But Domino's is succeeding with me where it matters the most at this point in my life - specialty pizzas at a decent price and not having to deal with a real person. That's all I need.

Also, I've seen local pizza places getting a lot of love for quality here. And there are definitely great small pizza places out there, where you pay more for quality. But there are just as many (if not more) shitty local pizza places that still charge more than the chains, and sometimes you don't know what you're going to get.

I am encouraged by the level of discourse here. On Monday the site will become Pizza Blues and we will only discuss pizza.

They are however successfully marketed as the highest quality of the large delivery chains and they charge a little more because of it. That's why they position their brand as "better ingredients, better pizza." Pizza Hut has their "Big Eats, Tiny Price" menu with a bunch of cheap value items on it (p-zone, pizza mia, pizza rolls, etc) in order to position themselves as the price leader. The real high quality position goes to local pizza places.

You can't point to any one thing that Domino's does well. They have no brand identity. For a while, they were trying to roll out wacky non-pizza items to differentiate themselves. Then they started in on this "we sucked so bad and we know it" (as Jason put it) campaign, which goes for quality by revamping their pizza taste and price by introducing the 2 mediums for $5.99ea deal. They are deliberately attacking Papa Johns and Pizza Hut (respectively) where they live. I doubt it will work well. Trying to compete on both quality and price simultaneously at the very least dilutes the message and at the worst causes cognitive dissonance in the mind of the consumer. This is to say nothing of the fact that starting the ad spots with an admission of poor product immediately casts your brand in negative light. The spots will really have to engage the viewer for them to be successful and for the viewer to process the turnaround message. Finally, Domino's is setting themselves up for failure by focusing so intensely on taste. When the consumer opens a Domino's Pizza box, their mind will be focused on appraising the taste. They will be thinking, "I wonder if this pizza is all it's cracked up to be." One would rather have the consumer open up the box and think, "YAY! PIZZA!" I would expect tepid reactions like the ones the AV Club had when they reviewed the new pizza.