Dominos Pizza Team Washington takes an (unscientific) look at the industry
According to the Domino's Pizza franchise Team Washington 2004 Pizza Meter, the night Howard Stern appeared on David Letterman, Domino's delivery drivers reaped the benefits. According to the survey, that evening was the biggest tipping night of the year followed by the night the Red Sox won the World Series and the day Phil Mickelson won the Masters tournament.
The Domino's Pizza Team Washington 2004 Pizza Meter, which queried delivery drivers at 60 franchise locations in the Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland areas, is an unscientific poll that takes an in-depth look into the relationship between pizza orders and events, people and the world around us. The survey also discovered that the number one pizza topping ordered on Election Night was extra cheese. Further, the biggest pizza ordering night of the year was the opening night of the Olympics, followed by the vice presidential debates and The Simple Life 2 season premiere.
"Who better to gauge what is really going on people's lives than a delivery driver who ultimately gets a sneak peak into what music we listen to, TV shows we watch or cars we drive every single day," explained David Carraway, president of Domino's Pizza Team Washington. "Although we found it pretty interesting that people wearing the Lance Armstrong yellow wristband were three times more likely to order veggie topped pizza, it did not surprise us that men who answered the door in suits on the night of the season premiere of The Apprentice tipped higher than any other night of the year."
Additional findings show that the worst day of tipping was when Martha Stewart was sent to prison. The 30-minute series finale of Sex in the City was recorded as the largest veggie-topped pizza order time of the year. Additionally, there was a significant increase in plain pizza orders on the night of Tom Brokaw's final appearance as host of Primetime and, interestingly, a 38-percent increase in everything-topped pizza orders during the season finale of Survivor.