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Dunkin' Donuts

History

Dunkin' Donuts LLC, also known as Dunkin', is an American multinational coffee with doughnuts firm, and quick service restaurant. It was founded by William Rosenberg in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1950. The chain was acquired by Baskin-Robbins's holding company Allied Lyons in 1990; its acquisition of the Mister Donut chain and the conversion of that chain to Dunkin' Donuts facilitated the brand's growth in North America that year. Dunkin' and Baskin-Robbins eventually became subsidiaries of Dunkin' Brands, headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts, in 2004, until being purchased by Inspire Brands on December 15, 2020. The chain began rebranding as a "beverage-led company", and was renamed Dunkin', in January 2019; while stores in the U.S. began using the new name, the rebranding will eventually be rolled out to all of its international stores.

Since its founding, Dunkin' has been continuing as a local power brand, operating one store for every 5,000 to 6,000 people across New England. The company sells approximately 2 billion cups of coffee across the globe (60 cups per second). With approximately 12,900 locations in 42 countries, Dunkin' is one of the largest coffee shop and donut shop chains in the world. Its products include donuts, bagels, coffee, and "Munchkins" (otherwise known as donut holes.)

1948–2005: Founding years

William Rosenberg opened a restaurant called "Open Kettle" in 1948. This restaurant's main focus was selling donuts and coffee in Quincy, Massachusetts.This restaurant was very successful grossing roughly $5,000 a week mainly from the coffee and donuts. Rosenburg wanted to change the name in 1950 to Dunkin' Donuts because he noticed most customers dipping the donuts in coffee. He conceived the idea for the restaurant after his experiences selling food in factories and at construction sites, where donuts and coffee were the two most popular items. The restaurant was successful, and Rosenberg sold franchises to others starting in 1955.

In 1963, Rosenberg's son Robert became CEO of the company at age 25 after graduating from Harvard business school, and Dunkin' Donuts opened its hundredth location that year. Dunkin' Donuts was a subsidiary of Universal Food Systems at the time, a conglomerate of 10 small food-service businesses, and Dunkin' Donuts locations varied greatly in their menu options, with some selling full breakfasts and others serving only donuts and coffee. The very first franchised Dunkin restaurant happened in 1955 opening in Dedham, MA. They had a variety of 52 donuts, enough for one special a week, for the entire year.

In 1973, the company began to sell, what are called munchkins (also known as donut holes), as a creative way to avoid wasting the center of the donut. Nowadays, these popular treats are sold at 1 billion munchkins annually across the globe.

In 1982 American actor, Michael Vale starred in a series of the companies famous commercials. Vale was known as one of televisions best salesman. He was part of over 200 commercials up until 1997.

In the following years, the other businesses in the Universal Food Systems portfolio were sold or closed, and the company was renamed to Dunkin' Donuts. The menu and shop format was standardized, and various new menu items were introduced. In the early 1980s counter service and ceramic coffee cups were replaced by self-service counters and paper cups. The chain went public in 1968 and was acquired by Baskin-Robbins owner Allied Lyons in 1990. By 1998, the brand had grown to 2,500 locations worldwide with $2 billion in annual sales.^[]

Dunkin' Donuts expanded in the 1990s by buying out two rival chains: Mister Donut and Dawn Donuts.

Eventually moving it's headquarters to Canton MA in 2004, located inside a building on Royall street in 2005. Despite company headquarters moving, the original building where Open Kettle was founded, is currently in use by the company.

2004–present: Success years in management

In 2004, the company's headquarters were relocated to Canton, Massachusetts. In December 2005, Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins (by then operating under the name Dunkin' Brands) were sold to a private equity consortium of Bain Capital, Carlyle Group, and Thomas H. Lee Partners for $2.4 billion. By 2010, Dunkin' Donuts' global sales were $6 billion.

The Dunkin' Donuts in Natick, Massachusetts launched a program to test the concept of curbside pickup in December 2016.

In January 2018, Dunkin' Donuts began to open new concept locations, beginning in Quincy, featuring a modern theme, cold beverages on tap and a single-cup brewing machine, more packaged take-out options, and dedicated pick-up lines for mobile ordering inside and in the drive-thru. The concept was described as being part of a shift towards becoming an "on-the-go, beverage-led brand". Additionally, the location, as well as others, began to trial signage referring to the chain as simply "Dunkin'"—removing "Donuts" from the name.

In February 2018, Dunkin' announced plans to phase out polystyrene foam cups globally for environmental purposes by April 2020.

On July 11, 2018, Dave Hoffmann replaced Nigel Travis and became the CEO. He has new goals for the company, which includes adding 1,000 new locations outside the Northeastern United States by the end of 2020 and to increase revenue by 3 percent for stores, which have been open a year or longer. Also in late 2018, Dunkin' installed espresso machines at all possible locations and launched espresso products using a new recipe.

In June 2019, Dunkin' partnered with Grubhub to begin the rollout of its new Dunkin' Delivers service. Later in July 2019, Dunkin' partnered with Beyond Meat to introduce a meatless breakfast sandwich in Manhattan, becoming the first U.S. restaurant brand to serve Beyond Sausage. The sandwich launched nationally later in 2019.

In October 2020, Dunkin' Brands publicly admitted the company was conversing with Inspire Brands, a private equity-backed company, negotiating to sell the company. Inspire Brands announced on Saturday, October 31, 2020, that they would be acquiring Dunkin' Brands Group, which would include Dunkin' Brands' debt that Inspire Brands would be taking. Inspire would pay $11.3 billion in cash($106.50 per share) for all of Dunkin' Brands' shares. On December 15, 2020, the acquisition was completed, and Dunkin' Brands ceased to exist as a separate company, with Dunkin', Baskin-Robbins, and the trademark management of Mister Donuts, becoming part of Inspire Brands.

Marketing

Dunkin' Donuts' "It's Worth the Trip" campaign starred sleepy-eyed "Fred the Baker" and featured the catchphrase "Time to make the donuts". It received honors from the Television Bureau of Advertising as one of the five best television advertisements of the 1980s. Fred the Baker was played by actor Michael Vale for 15 years until his retirement in 1997. The catchphrase was used in the title of founder William Rosenberg's autobiography Time to Make the Donuts: The Founder of Dunkin' Donuts Shares an American Journey.

Dunkin' Donuts changed its slogan in March 2006 to "America Runs on Dunkin'". They Might Be Giants songs were featured in a series of advertisements of new products to boost summer sales. In 2007, a series of Dunkin' Donuts commercials referred to the fictional language "Fritalian". "Is it French? Or is it Italian?" sings a chorus of customers facing a long menu of non-English terms. "Perhaps Fritalian?" was created by Hill Holliday to "poke fun at pretentious Starbucks-style coffee chains, with patrons attempting to order hard-to-pronounce lattes." The commercial was interpreted as a deliberate mocking of Starbucks. The commercials' punch line is: "Delicious lattes from Dunkin' Donuts. You order them in English". It has been a point of discussion that latte, cappuccino, and espresso are loanwords from Italian which have no equivalence in English. The commercials, however, refer to the Starbucks ordering language itself, poking fun at words such as grande and venti. Further commercials in 2007 more directly mocked Starbucks, with a customer ordering a "large" and being chastised to use the term "dieci".

In March 2009, the company unveiled the alternate slogan "You 'Kin Do It!" and launched a $100 million ad campaign promotion. In 2017, the company announced that it would begin testing the name of simply "Dunkin'" at some retail locations, as they would like to be regarded as a destination for coffee, its most profitable product. The branding would be implemented in other locations in the latter half of 2018 if it was successful. The brand announced that it would be known simply as Dunkin' in September 2018.

On April 3, 2018, Dunkin' Donuts aligned with the Massachusetts shoe manufacturer, Saucony to produce a strawberry-frosted donut themed running shoe to commemorate the 122nd running of the Boston Marathon. The Saucony X Dunkin' Kinvara 9 came in a donut box and the heel of the shoe was covered in rainbow sprinkles.

Logo

A script version of the words Dunkin' Donuts was filed on March 31, 1955, and registered on February 2, 1960. A later logo was for a drawing and word logo depicting a figure with a donut for a head and a coffee cup and donut body wearing a garrison cap, with Dunkin' emblazoned on both the coffee cup and cap. The design was rendered primarily in yellow and brown. The logo was applied for on June 23, 1958, registered on May 23, 1961, and put into use on July 1, 1964.

In 1961, the company began using a hot pink color for its branding and used a logo showing a stylized coffee cup with the company's name rendered on one line as a circle, evoking a donut dunking into the cup. In 1980, bright orange was added to the hot pink. As of 2014, the current logo is a variation of the logo that has been in use since about 1980: an all-capitals rendering of the words DUNKIN' DONUTS (Dunkin' in orange; Donuts in pink) in a thick, Frankfurter typeface with a coffee cup outlined in brown with a "DD" monogram.

In 2002, a graphic part was removed and replaced by the words “Dunkin’ Donuts” in orange and pink which resembled delicious looking. In 2019 the brownish frame and features were attached to the cup ending in a more opposite look in which half of the rectangle back of the cup was painted orange with an abbreviation DD marked on the cup.

In September 2018, the company announced that it would shorten its name to Dunkin', with a wider roll-out beginning in January 2019. The company acknowledged that "Dunkin'" was already a common shorthand name for the chain among customers and in its marketing (including the slogan "America Runs on Dunkin'"), and that the rebranding would reflect the chain's continuing shift towards being a "beverage-led" brand at a time when consumers have shown a preference for healthier trends and options as they consume fewer donuts. While stores in the U.S. started using the new name in 2019, the rebranding will eventually be rolled out to all of its international stores.

Primary ad agency

In April 2018, Dunkin' named BBDO (Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne) as their primary advertising agency. This replaced Hill Holliday, which had been producing print, digital, broadcast, and billboard advertising for almost twenty years. Hill Holliday was the agency responsible for the tagline "America Runs on Dunkin'". ARC/Leo Burnett was also named to lead all in-store promotions.

Affiliations

Dunkin' keeps dominating the New England area and having paid partnerships with some of the best athletes around is a major key. Dunkin' has a close relationship with the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots, making commercials at the start of each team's season for promotions. A few familiar names may include David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins and Kyle Van Noy of the New England Patriots. Dunkin' also sponsors other professional sports teams, including the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Philadelphia Eagles, and Tampa Bay Rays. A huge deal that happened recently was with Liverpool FC of the Barclays English Premier league and that was able to happen through the long-standing marketing relationship with the Boston Red Sox.

In efforts to expand the market of Dunkin', they "Donutssigned" NBA legend Lebron James to a multi million dollar deal and is looking to target the audiences of China, India, South Korea, and Taiwan.

in the year 2000 Dunkin' Donuts was selected as the winning bidder for rights to the Civic Center in Providence. June 14,2001, Dunkin' signed a 10 year agreement for naming and marketing rights to the Civic Center and renamed it the Dunkin' Donuts Center. The center is currently the home court for the NCAA and Big East Providence Friars men's basketball team from Providence College as well as home ice for the AHL Providence Bruins hockey team. In reference to the center's long association with local college basketball, it is often known locally as "The Dunk".

In 2015, Dunkin' Donuts was announced as the named sponsor of the baseball park in Hartford, Connecticut, new home of the Hartford Yard Goats baseball team. It is named Dunkin' Donuts Park.

Dunkin' Donuts signed a sponsorship deal with the National Women's Hockey League in December 2015. As part of the multi-year agreement, Dunkin’ Donuts is the official hot, iced and frozen coffee of the NWHL.

In 2016, Dunkin' became the official "coffee, donut and breakfast sandwich partner" of the National Hockey League.

As you can see, Dunkin' Donuts being the "coffee, donut and breakfast" empire has acquired some incredible affiliations over the years. This will only help them continue to grow success and popularity.

Criticism

In 1997, Dunkindonuts.org became a website established for disgruntled consumers and employees to lodge complaints about the company. The site appeared ahead of the company's own website in many search engines and received national media coverage before being purchased by Dunkin' Donuts in 1999.

Dunkin' Donuts was criticized by one of its franchisees for allegedly forcing single-store owners to agree to a buyout at a loss for minor infractions. Dunkin' Donuts sued franchise owners 154 times from 2006 to April 2008. Over the same period, McDonald's was involved in five lawsuits. Subway, a company that has four times the number of locations as Dunkin' Donuts, sued its franchisees 12 times. (These figures do not include arbitrations, which the companies use in pursuing legal claims against their franchisees.) Franchisees allege that the company's business strategy needs predominantly multi-unit franchisees.

Rachael Ray starred in commercials for Dunkin' Donuts beginning in 2007. In May 2008, Dunkin' Donuts removed a commercial from its website featuring Ray wearing a scarf with a black and white paisley floral design, in response to columnist Michelle Malkin's claims that the scarf resembled the keffiyeh worn by Yasser Arafat and therefore a sign of support for terrorists. Dunkin' Donuts pulled that commercial off the air, leading to criticism of the company's perceived kowtowing to special interests.

In 2009, the company temporarily stopped the sale of two of its products, the Dunkaccino and hot chocolate, after concern of a possible salmonella poisoning at a supplier's facilities. Dunkin' Donuts claimed that none of the beverages were contaminated, but the recall was made out of safety for its consumers.

In May 2010, Dunkin' Donuts was criticized for advertising "Free Iced Coffee Day" on its national Facebook page, which took place in only 13 cities. Because of the limited scope of the promotion, many customers became dissatisfied with the lack of free iced coffee and vented their anger on the Dunkin' Donuts Facebook page.

In 2013, the Dunkin' Donuts chain in Thailand used an advertisement that contained a photograph of a woman in black face-paint, in order to promote its new chocolate-flavored donuts. The company was criticized for the advertisement, with the Human Rights Watch calling the advertisement “bizarre and racist”. The headquarters in the United States apologized for the advertisement.

Nancy Lewis, in Canaan, Connecticut, began a petition in January 2014 to request that Dunkin' Donuts donate their unsold food to local shelters and food banks in her area after seeing her local shop regularly throwing away "large amounts" of unsold food. She said because the company has no official policy on the redistribution of its unsold food items to shelters or food banks, and employees are not allowed to take any home, many affiliates throw all of the goods away.

In September 2019, the New York attorney general alleged in a lawsuit that Dunkin' mishandled a series of "brute force" cyberattacks that were directed at customers using the Dunkin' mobile app. These attacks took place in early 2015 and thousands of usernames and passwords stolen. The state lawsuit alleges that Dunkin' employees knew about these attacks, but failed to take appropriate action. The New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges the Massachusetts-based company was "glazing over" the cyberattacks. A Dunkin' spokesperson said the restaurant chain has been working with law enforcement for two years and will fight the lawsuit.

Endorsers
Yoon Shi-yoon	Charli D'Amelio	Janno Gibbs (2002–2003)	Joey de Leon (2004–2010)
Derek Ramsay (2013–present)	Jennylyn Mercado (2015–2016)	Piolo Pascual (1990s, 2017–present)	Dingdong Dantes (2019–present)
David Ortiz	Rob Gronkowski	Meghan Duggan	SB19 (2021–present)