Domino’s New Pizza Chef adds augmented reality (AR) to the pizza-customization and ordering process, allowing users to visualize and order virtual pies. The new AR experience launched on Domino’s mobile app this week and continues the brand’s ongoing investment in consumer technology.
Consumers with the Domino’s mobile app can now build and preview a pizza in AR. New Pizza Chef lets users select their crust, cheese and swirls, then drag and drop remove virtual toppings. Certain toppings will trigger animated characters, such as a hula dancing pineapple. Setting the pizza on fire cooks it on the spot.
There are over one billion possible combinations in Domino’s New Pizza Chef, the brand announced. Once they find the desired combination, users can have their AR creations delivered IRL.
It was important to the company, however, that finished products matched the user’s AR creation.
“Making sure each ingredient shown reflects the weight we use in store means that the pizza a customer receives looks the same as the one they created—and that makes for a more satisfied customer,” Domino’s group chief marketing officer Allan Collins said.
This isn’t Domino’s first foray into AR pizza ordering. In April, the brand launched a Snapchat campaign that allowed users to take photos with virtual ‘zas and order delivery without leaving the app.
In fact, Domino’s has traditionally been an early adopter of technology, integrating the latest gadgets into their marketing strategy. Hungry customers have been able to track their pizzas for a decade now. The brand introduced “Dom,” an AI pizza ordering assistant in 2014 and earlier this year, began testing it as a replacement for human phone orders.
Other efforts have included a Facebook chatbot and its AnyWare initiative, which allows users to order a pizza just by texting a pizza emoji.
“Innovations such as the New Pizza Chef with Augmented Reality are important as they help us to continue to drive online sales,” said Domino’s Group chief digital and technology officer Michael Gillespie. “And, with up to two million items sold online in one week, we know it’s important for us to always be making the online ordering experience more seamless, rewarding and memorable for our customers.”
Domino’s CEO J. Patrick Doyle hopes that the brand will become 100 percent digital in the future, so it looks like Gillespie and his team are going to stay busy.