Seeing as today is National Donut Day (a big thumbs up to whoever invented that by the way, keep up the good work), I have decided to give credit where credit is due to one of my favorite edible brands and the inventive and always dynamic ways in which they stay in-touch and up-to-date with their customer base.
Dunkin Donuts was founded in 1950 and now the company is serving 2.7 million customers per day at approximately 8,800 stores in 31 countries which includes approximately 6,400 Dunkin’ Donuts locations throughout the USA. The original ad slogan was “Sounds Good, Tastes Even Better,” but sales began to explode in the 80’s when Dunkin’ Donuts’ launched an ad campaign, starring sleepy-eyed “Fred the Baker” and featuring the catch phrase “Time to make the donuts.” The ads won honors from the Television Bureau of Advertising as one of the five best commercials of the 1980s.
Dunkin’ Donuts led the donut category for nearly 60 years, selling 2.5 million donuts every day, but after the Starbucks boom in the 90’s, Dunkin Donuts began to re-evaluate the connection they had with the consumer and what they found out, changed the way they do business.
According to the company media kit, “In 2004, our company conducted a study in which customers were asked to substitute their daily Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with another brand for one week. The results disclosed regular Dunkin’ Donuts patrons felt their lives were more difficult because they lacked order without their daily Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.” Patrons were coming in for coffee and then buying donuts, instead of the other way around. Check out this article from Fast Company in 2004.
So, in 2007, the company changed the ad campaign to “The Country Runs On Dunkin'” and with coffee as the focus, beverages accounted for nearly 60 percent of Dunkin’ Donuts’ 2008 U.S. sales. They now sell 16% of all the cup coffee sold in the U.S., more than one billion cups of coffee every year. They could do that with the wonder equipment that they’ve gotten hold of. You may learn more about the coffee maker here at https://www.pickandbrew.com/choosing-the-best-home-espresso-machine/.
In 2008, Dunkin’ Donuts partnered with Yahoo! Inc. to create two new Dunkin’ Donuts-branded video programs, as well as a Dunkin’ Donuts community web site. Their Facebook page as of today has 1.5 million fans, along with custom landing pages that change constantly, ongoing promotions, and a very active YouTube channel.
In 2009, DD was named 2009 Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) Interactive Marketer of the Year. Additionally, the company received praise for its Dunkin’ Run social platform and its Keep It Coolatta® Facebook promotion. In 2009, there was a campaign for people to “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut”. The contest drew 130,000 online entrants and 330,000 virtual donut creations, along with 3 million Facebook impressions.
Most importantly of all, they have capitalized on a longstanding (actually depression-era) holiday, today’s National Donut Day by offering a free donut to anyone who buys a cup of coffee. If we had a Dunkin Donuts here in Jackson, WY, I would have been in line early this morning, but its gonna have to be second-rate sprinkles for me. Happy Holiday, folks.