Pizza’s Famed Villain Has Returned to Disrupt Domino’s Delivery Once Again

Prepare to “avoid the Noid” once more.

An image of the Noid character and a delivery vehicle.
Domino's
Domino's

The Noid? We haven’t heard that name in years. More than three decades after Domino’s successful Noid campaign first depicted “an antihero that has been trying to prevent great pizza delivery since 1986,” the character is back to menace once again. 

It makes sense that the Noid, who lives to disrupt, would return at a time when we’re seeing changes in delivery service across many categories. The Noid’s comeback, for example, happens to coincide with Domino’s autonomous delivery vehicle test program in partnership with robotics company Nuro.  

“Whatever the reason,” a press release reads, “the Noid simply can't stand it anymore, and the pesky antihero has returned in Domino's new television ads, which begin airing today, trying to thwart the advanced technology of Nuro's R2 robot, a completely autonomous, occupantless on-road vehicle, out on a pizza delivery."

Once a staple of the small screen, the Noid is not only returning to television ads, but also appearing in the mobile game Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!. He will appear, naturally, as a foe in the game. 

"The Noid is Domino's oldest and most famous villain, and the pizza delivery testing we're doing with Nuro's autonomous vehicle is exactly the kind of technology innovation that could provoke the Noid to return," Domino's vice president of advertising Kate Trumbull said in the release. "However, after 35 years of practice in avoiding the Noid, we're pretty confident we know how to defeat it."

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