“Blue collar heart” is what America runs on, and it is the core of the Dunkin' strategy. No matter what the job title, what we look like, or where we live, Americans are a hard-working, determined group of people who want to better themselves and their family’s lives and have some fun along the way. No pretense, no forced irony, no judgments, no secret menus that you can't pronounce. Just a great cup of coffee served at the speed of you.
I had the honor of running this iconic American brand for nearly seven years and over that time, we produced a ton of content that generated billions in sales and billions of impressions. Over that time Dunkin' became a lifestyle brand that was more modern, digitally-led, and best in class.
NATIONAL DONUT DAY 2017
With an incredibly strategic social plan, a highly motivated team, and a real-time war room, Dunkin' dominated National Donut Day 2017 across all platforms. We used everything at our disposal: FB, Twitter, Instagram, Kik, chatbots, emoji, stickers, gifs, Waze, in-store experiential, Snapchat lenses and geo-filters, social listening, and one-to-one custom content. That translated into 6.5 million content engagements and over 2 billion media impressions. Results? Dunkin’ had the sixth highest foot traffic day in company history with the most beverage sales of all time. Feel the #donutlove.
A FEW GRAMS, POSTS, TWEETS, STORIES, LENSES, GIFs, PICS, CINEMAGRAPHS, BOOMERANGS AND WHATNOTS
HOW TO HIJACK MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL IN SIX SECONDS
Although Dunkin’ was a pre-game sponsor, they were never an "official" Monday Night Football sponsor. How did we hijack the broadcast and get a ton of coverage? We created the Dunkin’ Replay. Starting with the first ever broadcast 6 second Vine ad, we took the biggest plays and recreated them with Dunkin’ products using stop motion photography within the Vine app, completely produced on a single iPhone. Using only social platforms we then re-broadcast the Dunkin’ Replay before the game was even finished. Touchdown.
FACEBOOK RICH MEDIA: DUNKIN’ COFFEE CUSTOMIZER
Our digital team had been given a heads up that Facebook was releasing their first rich media ad unit for its mobile platform and Dunkin’ had a first opportunity to build an ad with full HTML5 capabilities: full screen, access to the gyroscope, multi-page, animation, touch, location aware and fully shareable. We built a coffee customizer experience that pushed the limits of the tech and the team. It was kick ass.
DUNKIN' MIB3 CAPTURE APP
Tired of aliens always capturing our humans and cows, it was time to turn the tables, thanks to Dunkin' partnering with Men in Black 3. The showpiece of our fully integrated campaign was a built from scratch, MIB inspired mobile app that allowed Dunkin’ fans to capture one of the aliens from the film, Spikey Bulba, and keep him on your phone. Tickle him, play tic-tac-toe, have him dance and of course pump him full of Dunkin’ Iced coffee and donuts. An integrated Foursquare Dunkin' check-in drove in-store sales by allowing the you to refill Spikey's food supply as well as give you an opportunity for a quick iced coffee.
DUNKIN'S FLAVOR FLICK
Dunkin’ fans love gaming on their mobile devices and we wanted to reach them where they were. Instead of building out a full blown branded game, we bought a rich media interstitial ad unit within Scrabble. But we didn’t build an ad. We built a mini 15 second Dunkin’ game, the Dunkin’ Flavor Flick. It was a game within a game. Meta.
THE SUMMER SOUNDTRACK x SPOTIFY
Challenges like temperature, change in routine, and a highly competitive marketplace can make the summer a tough season for coffee retailers like Dunkin’. How were we going to keep our coffee tribe engaged over the dog days? One word, music. We discovered that search for “coffee”, “break” and “music” spiked during summer afternoons, so we partnered with Spotify to create a summer long concert series based around delivering the ultimate coffee break: The Dunkin’ Summer Soundtrack.
THE SIMS SOCIAL RUNS ON DUNKIN'
Expanding the Dunkin’ media buy, we proposed Dunkin’ partner in the global relaunch of the Electronic Arts Sims franchise, Sims Social. A social based game, Dunkin’ would be the only coffee brand in the experience locking out other coffee brands like McDonalds and Starbucks. Game play involved getting, gifting and using Dunkin’ products in game which rewarded players with virtual Sims Social currency. The Dunkin’ digital assets were highly coveted and players appreciated the value exchange, resulting in one million new Dunkin' Facebook fans, 50 million virtual gifts and 3.6 billion impressions.
BUZZFEED BREWS COLD BREW
We partnered with Buzzfeed’s creative team to create this long-form-Rube-Goldberg-explainer-video to show how something so simple as Cold Brew coffee can also be so complex.
DUNKIN' 360º VIDEO WITH THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL
Through our media partnership with the Discovery Channel, Dunkin' Donuts went aboard the Susan Miller tugboat for a 360º Video shoot of New York harbor.
SECRET INGREDIENT? DUNKIN'
Partnering with Top Chef, Dunkin' Donuts was the secret ingredient in the Chef's quick-fire challenge. Pushing past the regular broadcast, we created a live, first of its kind, second screen cooking competition that viewers at home participated in using Google+ hangouts.