Dunkin’ Donuts social media response - and your grade is?
The social media idea path is like watching cells grow and multiply. Here is the exciting path of this idea related to Dunkin’ Donuts and the Super Bowl. Sunday, January 20, I’m on Twitter the night of the Green Bay/New York Giants NFC Championship game. People tweeted about the final moments of the game and upon its conclusion, I started tweeting with my Boston friends who like Dunkin’ Donuts, how that popular east coast franchise can capitalize on the Super Bowl with two teams competing from their two largest markets, Boston and New York City. Those friends included Doug Haslam, Chip Griffin, Geoff Livingston (DC guy but also responded to tweet string), Scott Monty, Sarah Wurrey, and Mike Volpe.
A quick review of the Dunkin’ Donuts website reveals that Dunkin’ has extensive experience working with NFL promotions and even has run contests with both the New York Giants and New England Patriots. Excellent. Dunkin’ Donuts slogan is America Runs on Dunkin’ - Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?
On Monday, January 21, I thought of an idea and blogged about it on our marketing blog about a Super Bowl contest that ties into the slogan, Dunkin’ Donuts Has a Super Opportunity , the team with the most rushing yards would earn for that market a free something, maybe a Dunkin loyalty card with a free cup of coffee loaded on it or a free coffee during the two hours after the game (you get the picture). I also sent in a link to the idea on the Dunkin’ Donuts website, through customer relations.
on Wednesday, January 23, I received the resonse below. I’ve given the response grades, and invite yours as well. A couple of more data points here. 1) I did not submit to a PR or media inquiry because I did not find an email for one on the site at the time and 2) Dunkin’ Donuts is currently running (pardon the pun) a user generated campaign on You Tube called How Do You Keep America Running.
Here is Dunkin’s reply to our Rushing Yardage contest idea:
Dear Albert,
Thank you for thinking of Dunkin’ Brands, Inc.
We’re always developing new ways to keep our faithful customers coming back to our stores for more. In fact we have entire departments whose job it is to come up with fresh and exciting concepts for products, flavors, programs, advertising, etc.
We also receive many unsolicited suggestions from our friends outside the company, driven by a love and passion for our brands. Most of the time, the suggestions are things our teams have already thought of and may already be working on.
Therefore, to prevent any possible misunderstandings, we cannot accept or review unsolicited ideas such as: patented or un-patented, trademarked or un-trademarked ideas, copyright protected materials, advertising slogans, marketing programs, promotional programs, patent applications, trademark applications, copyright applications, product suggestions, prototypes or models.
Again, thank you for thinking of Dunkin’ Brands, Inc.
Thank you and have a great day.
Michelle
Customer Relations Associate
Ref # 4488839
Here are my grades for their response:
1) Timeliness they at least replied within a couple of days. - A Excellent,
2) Sincerity, it looks like a boilerplate response - C to me some of the copy is a bit condescending , however, I can understand this given that someone might claim rights to an idea, which leads to my next grading topic,
3) Legal cover, nice job lawyers - A
4) Brand loyalty impact, has the response improved your feeling of the brand - B While the response did not uniquely notice the submission, it did attempt to respond in a timely and polite manner and for that Dunkin’ Donuts deserves some credit.
Overall It’s a B, time for another coffee.
Tags: America Runs on Dunkin, brand mentions, Dunkin, Dunkin Donuts, YouTube
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 7:35 am and is filed under advertising, blog monitoring, blogger relations, blogging, blogs, customer service, marketing, public relations, social media.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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January 24th, 2008 at 7:53 am
[...] amaruggi@providentpartners.net (Albert Maruggi) wrote a fantastic post today on “Dunkin’ Donuts social media response - and your grade is?”Here’s ONLY a quick extractSunday, January 20, I’m on Twitter the night of the Green Bay/New York Giants NFC Championship game. People tweeted about the final moments of the game and upon its conclusion, I started tweeting with my Boston friends who like Dunkin’ … [...]
January 24th, 2008 at 8:24 am
I guess that’s the response you could have expected. Maybe a marketing guy at DD will run with it and take credit (hey, what do you have to lose?)
But one thought– didn’t a similar response from Apple re: iPod improvement suggestion make a 9-year-old girl cry?
January 24th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
They should have sent you $5 gift certificate for coffee and a donut!
January 25th, 2008 at 8:32 am
[...] Here’s another interesting post I read today by Marketing Edge [...]
January 28th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I agree with Geoff! They should have compensated you for your efforts. But it’s great that they got back to you so soon. I feel like timeliness is one of the biggest issues when consumers send ideas or suggestions to companies such as this.
Great post!
January 28th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I have an idea for a dunkin donuts commercial but I dont know
where to go from here. I think it would be a hit. I have E-Mailed dunkin donuts, but never got a response. I think it was because I did not reveal any of the commercial idea. I would really like to see if this is something dunkin donuts could be interested in. Please contact me at josephpilkington@starpower.net
Thanks Joe Pilkington
202-387-6730
Washington D.C.