What would you do if your employees did what these Dominos employees did?

If you haven't heard yet... a couple of Dominos employees posted a YouTube video doing gross things while making a making a sandwich. One inserts pieces of cheese into his nose and waves pieces of salami behind his backside. Both the salami and the cheese are placed on the sandwiches. Every customer's worst nightmare realized.

Apparently the employees have been identified and terminated.

According to Adverting Age, Dominos spokesman Tim McIntyre, the affected franchisee has filed a criminal complaint, and Mr. McIntyre said Dominos is examining its own legal options, including a possible civil action against the pair for defamation of the brand

"Any idiot with a webcam and an internet connection can attempt to undo all that's right about the brand," he said, adding that Dominos has 125,000 employees in 60 countries and a loyal following. "In the course of one three-minute video, two idiots can attempt to unravel all of that."

Mr. McIntyre said the chain is looking into what can be done to prevent this in the future, but there's only so much a marketer can do. "You can be the safest driver, you know," Mr. McIntyre said. "But there's going to be that Friday night someone's drunk and comes from out of nowhere. You can do the best you can, but there's going to be the equivalent of that drunk driver that hits the innocent victim."

He said the company decided not to issue a press release or post a statement online. After all, he said, the company can deal with tens of thousands of impressions, but a strong response from Domino's would alert more consumers to the embarrassment and the company decided that such a response would be akin to "putting out a candle with a fire hose."

So did Dominos take the proper action? Of course firing them is the right thing... but basically it seems they are trying to keep it quiet. I wonder if this approach will backfire? Once this story gets wider attention (and it already is based on a Google news search) would they have been better off "bringing the fire hose out"?

What do you think?

Read the entire Advertising Age article here