It’s 2009, and Patrick Doyle has a problem.

He’s the CEO of Domino’s Pizza, and his product is universally despised. Not just disliked, but actively, vocally hated. Customers are saying things like “the crust tastes like cardboard,” “totally devoid of flavour,” and “mass-produced, boring, bland.”

The focus groups are brutal and the online reviews are worse. Doyle is sitting in a meeting room, watching it all unfold, knowing that his company’s reputation is circling the drain.

At this point, most CEOs would do what CEOs do: hire consultants, rebrand, launch a marketing campaign about hand stretched dough or woodfired ovens, and hope everyone forgets about the cardboard comments.

Patrick Doyle did something else entirely – he put those focus groups in a TV advert. The full, unvarnished, “your pizza is terrible” truth. He sat there in the ad, looking directly at the camera, and said: “We screwed up. Give our pizza another chance.”

His marketing team probably thought he’d lost his mind, but Doyle knew that people are so unused to being told the truth in advertising that when someone actually does… it resonates with the viewer.

And he was right.

Customers came back in their millions. Same-store sales jumped nearly 10% in a single year. The stock price doubled, and then kept climbing. Within three years, Domino’s went from industry punchline to a case study in corporate redemption.

Turning disaster into delight

KFC learned the same lesson the hard way in 2018 when a logistics fiasco left hundreds of UK restaurants without chicken.

A chicken restaurant. With no chicken.

The internet went predictably berserk, but KFC’s response could not have been better. A full-page ad showing an empty bucket with their logo rearranged to read “FCK.”

Below it, two simple words: “We’re sorry.”

That single ad generated 800 million media impressions, 8.6 million Twitter impressions in three days, and turned a PR catastrophe into marketing gold and brand sentiment actually improved post-crisis.

Then there’s the gold standard of crisis management: Johnson & Johnson and the 1982 Tylenol poisoning scare. When seven people died after taking capsules that had been laced with cyanide after leaving the factory, J&J could have deflected – blamed distributors, and pointed fingers.

Instead, they pulled 31 million bottles off shelves nationwide at a cost of over $100 million. Within a year, Tylenol had regained its market-leading position, because J&J acted like a company people could trust – and the public responded in kind.

The science of sorry

A recent study found that 89% of consumers will give a business a second chance if it admits to a mistake and is transparent about how it’s fixing it. By contrast, 86% would consider switching to a competitor if a brand isn’t forthcoming with the truth.

Even better, 85% of people said that if a company has been consistently transparent, they’re more likely to stick by it when something goes wrong. Honesty builds reputation capital, or an “Emotional Bank Account” as Stephen Covey calls it, that cushions the blow when you inevitably mess up.

What this means for estate agents

Estate agency has a trust crisis. Only 32% of Britons trust estate agents to tell the truth, ranking just below private landlords in the “least trusted professions” chart.

Which is a giant opportunity for those agents who are proficient at building trust.

In a sea of sameness, the agent who tells the truth stands out. Not the truth cloaked in estate agent-ese, but the this-might-cost-me-the-instruction truth.

The valuation where you say, “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but your kitchen needs updating before we list.”

They might not love hearing it, but they’ll respect you for saying it. And when that refreshed kitchen helps them achieve a better price in less time, you’ve earned an advocate for your business.

And who do you trust more – the agency with 47 perfect scores and nothing else, or the one with 200 reviews averaging 4.7 stars, openly addressing the handful of complaints?

Radical transparency doesn’t mean airing every dirty secret. It means being honest about market conditions, owning your mistakes, setting realistic expectations instead of over-promising to win instructions.

It means saying, “The market’s slower than usual right now. Your neighbour’s house took three months to sell. This will be tough, but we have a strategy to beat that,” instead of, “We’ll have you sold in a fortnight, no problem.”

It means admitting when a viewing went badly and explaining what you’re doing differently next time, rather than radio silence followed by a vague, “not quite right for them.”

The competitive edge you didn’t know you had

Domino’s learned that customers reward honesty with loyalty. KFC discovered that a sincere apology beats spin every time. Johnson & Johnson proved that putting people before profit pays off in the long run.

And estate agents? You have the chance to stand out from the crowd by being refreshingly honest and candid with our customers.

The research is clear: people forgive failures, but they don’t forgive dishonesty. So the next time something goes wrong, resist the urge to deflect or obfuscate and build trust with radical honesty instead.

Toby Martin is a marketing consultant, trainer, and speaker.

You are not in control of your own mind (and neither are your customers)