Pink & Orange

Those of you who have attended one of our workshops, you know my undying devotion to the pink and orange beacon that is Dunkin Donuts… this devotion stems back many years, to the Dunkin cart on campus and today to the store just over a mile from my house – where they recognize my car and have my coffee ready when I pull through.

But today’s post isn’t about knowing your customer’s vehicles, but instead focuses on this brand’s eMarketing creativity and timeliness. First things first, for those of you who haven’t enjoyed your free donut, run out now! Dunkin Donuts is giving away a free donut with every coffee purchase. As a devoted fan, I got the forewarning email and enjoyed my strawberry frosted (AKA Homer Simpson) donut this morning. This timely email has mass appeal – it’s hard to refuse free pastry – and offered a nice twist to the typical promotion/ event-based marketing (not everyone’s brand ties in with tax-time.)

They’re giving a way more than donuts, Dunkin is also running a total of five contests; my favorite is the YouTube based contest that asks loyal fans to submit videos on How Do You Keep America Running? To date they have received 42 video submissions that have been narrowed down to the Top 10; the prize is a year’s supply of coffee (heaven!). Dunkin Donuts is promoting this contest from their site, as a splash in their emails and through their own channel on YouTube – a medium that has garnered over 222K channel views and over a thousand subscribers.

Not a bad strategy for a brick-and-mortar food services company, huh? Their creativity has spanned so much further than the typical in-store and/ or mass advertising approach to include user-generated content and timely emails to bring you back to the store – kudos Dunkin!