Social Media Monitoring of Dunkin Donuts

For my project, I decided to monitor Dunkin Donuts. I’m sure all you New Englanders are pretty familiar with the coffee as well as the brand. But being from California (where we don’t have Dunkin Donuts) I was really interested as to why and how this chain became such a local obsession.

To start off, let’s look at some facts about Dunkin Donuts:

-founded in 1950 in Quincy, MA by William Rosenberg

-headquarters are in Canton, MA

-subsidiary of Dunkin’ Brands, along with Baskin Robbins

-serves 2.7 million customers per day in 8,800 locations in 31 countries

-has a few locations in Arizona, Nevada, and Texas, but mostly concentrated in New England

-competitors include Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Honey Dew Donuts, and Mister Donut

Social Media:

Twitter:

-DD joined Twitter on September 9, 2007

-as of this blog post, they have 55,027 followers on Twitter (compared with Starbucks' 968,203)

-currently ranked 2,574th (compared to Starbucks at 275)

  

Here's a chart for June and July of 2010. As you can see the number of followers has been steadily increasing. (Statistics provided by Twitaholic.com)

 Here's some of DunkinDonuts' latest tweets:

 

@SoxPinkPony The "Wally the Green Monster" Coolatta is available in VT. Try it and let us know what you think - one of my fav flavors ^MG

@sarahblacker Glad to hear it! After 60 years, we've certainly become a ritual in many lives because we keep people running all day! ^MG

@laurengcarey Old-fashioned cake Munchkins covered with pink and orange nonpareils. Bright and yummy - perfect for summer :) ^MG

Facebook:

-1,802,065 who "Like" DD on Facebook

Here's what some people had to say on the Facebook page:

Destin Shines!  wished there was a Dunkin' Donuts close by!

Farrah Cerrentano Hoehne We had our baby shower this weekend and our favors included the mini bags of Dunkin Donuts coffee! Great favor for the coffee lover, and DD Addicts.

 

Hector Santiago Love DD coffee and the service is usually decent except for one store: the one on Broadway in Jersey City, NJ. Half the time they are ignorant, especially to the kids there. Then they are not very good with their service other half, since they always seems to mess up the most simplistic they could get

 

Click here for Dunkin Donuts Facebook page statistics (provided by Famecount Social Media) 

As you can see, their number of Facebook fans is rising at a much higher rate than their number of Twitter followers.

Youtube:
-DD joined Youtube in 2006 and currently have 2,106 subscribers

-their uploads have 1,144,171 views

Check out their latest video that shows the making of the Times Square mural

Clearly, Dunkin Donuts is doing a pretty good job of utlizing social media. Their sales revenue has been steadily increasing since 2006. (Statistics provided by moneycentral.msn.com)

Negative Trends:

However, there is also a fair amount of negative trends in online conversation surrounding the company which they could better address.

 


There is a Dunkin Cruelty campaign led by animal rights activists urging Dunkin Donuts to stop using eggs and dairy in their products and to offer a vegan menu. The campaign's slogan "Animals run from Dunkin" reinforces the idea that animals are mistreated in the making of some of the company's products. Dunkin Cruelty also has a Facebook page (with almost 1,500) fans who express their outrage at DD's lack of action. They also point out that Starbucks, DD's biggest    competitor does offer a vegan menu.

In May 2010, DD was criticized for advertising "Free Iced Coffee Day" on its national Facebook page, even though the promotion only took place in 14 stores. 

In 2008, Dunkin Donuts cancelled a commercial featuring Rachael Ray wearing a scarf because conservative observers thought it looked too much like a keffiyeh (traditional scarf of Arab men) and accused the company of being terrorist sympathizers. Although it seems a bit silly, DD felt a lot of pressure from the conservative blogosphere and decided not to risk a possible boycott.

Target Audience:

Dunkin Donuts' target consumer is the middle-class American ranging in age from 18-45. They are coffee enthusiasts, mainly people on the go, and some families. The ideal consumer is a working professional with a family. They are generally in their 30s and enjoy a quick coffee and doughnut before work. The consumer is practical and unappreciative of red tape or fancy marketing. (courtesy of Dunkin Donuts)

Generally, I think Dunkin Donuts has been very good about listening to their customers adapting their advertising to their target audience. They have a close relationship with the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots (thereby appealing to all their fans who tend to fall in the same category as DD's target audience). 

In response to trends in healthier eating among Americans, DD announced plans to greatly reduce trans fat from its menu by switching to different oil. Also launched DDSMART, a healthy new menu. Items on this menu are reduced in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, or sodium by at least 25%.

And to increase appeal to families or individuals too busy to stop by a store, Dunkin Donuts has started selling their coffee beans at supermarkets, which have increased sales revenue for the company since the launch of the new product. 

Knowing that their biggest competitor is Starbucks and that they share a large portion of their target audience, DD has focused their advertising on pointed out the difference between them and Starbucks. In 2007, Dunkin ran a series of commericals making fun of Starbucks.

While both companies are trying to appeal to the same demographic (working adults), Dunkin Donuts focuses on its "Avergage Joe" customers but making Starbucks appear pretentious.

Despite their best efforts, Starbucks definitely has a much stronger online presence than Dunkin Donuts. This is likely due to the face that their customers tend to be younger, more educated, and therefore more involved in social media. This isn't to say that Starbucks is more popular or has higher sales, but DD definitely needs to energize their groundswell and take into account the Social Technographics profile of their customers.

Social Mention's  sentiment graph shows that while sentiment about DD tends to be more positive than negative, it is still overwhelmingly neutral.

Most mentions about the company in blogs and even on Twitter are only mentions, not positive or negative reviews.

They have also failed to address much of the negative trends in conversation surrounding their company. They have simply ignored campaigns against the company instead of providing a space to communicate with those groups/individuals.

Goals for the Client:

When it comes to social media, Dunkin Donuts has essentially done the bare minimum, Yes, they have a Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter page but they have not been actively engaging their followers or fans. Sometimes new content is posted, but customers are not being listened to. 

My goals for this company would be to create a much stronger online presence. Respond to customer concerns and energize the groundswell!  Their advertising has done a fairly good job of seperating themselves from their competition and creating a strong brand connection but they don't utilize the potential of their online community.

Because many of their customers feel a cultural connection to the company (sports fans, New England natives) Dunkin Donuts should also focus on word-of-mouth marketing. Encourage satisfied customers to talk about your brand. Have more promotions such as the

"Create Dunkin's Next Donut" contest that showed a "healthy response in donut sales during the promotion period".

Getting your morning coffee is a routine for most people. Routines tend to be boring. This is why DD needs to come up with ways to get their customers excited about the not-so-exciting. For example, one of the latest new websites for social media foursquare lets customers "check in" to places online when they go there. Lots of companies will offer rewards for customers checking in multiple times. Dunkin Donuts could certainly utilize this website to get their frequent customers excited about visiting. And definitely keep marketing the donuts!! After all, it's not called Dunkin Coffee.

Response Post Week 2

One of the best ways to market a product is to get excited customers talking about their positive experience. As is shown in chapter seven of Groundswell, word-of-mouth is one of the best forms of marketing because not only does it spread quickly, but it’s very believable and therefore effective (we tend to trust the opinions of our friends and family). Companies have realized that energized customers may be their greatest advertising tool and are utilizing word-of-mouth programs. Now of course in order for this method to be effective, companies must energize their customers. I know I tend to love a lot of the things I use and buy but I very rarely spend time telling others about it. Which is why I was so impressed when I read about how eBags and Lego were able to energize their customers by creating a system of ratings and reviews and Lego Ambassadors, respectively.

One part of the reading that I especially loved was TJ and Michelle’s story using CarePages. This blogging system designed especially for patients is a great example of how groundswell can also be used for emotional support. It was so refreshing to read their story and see a different way in which social media can be used. Especially in an unfortunate situation such as theirs, it is extremely helpful to have a way of updating loved ones without having to tell the same depressing story many times. CarePages reminded me of Twitter, where you also update family and friends. But I don’t think Twitter, with its 140 character maximum, could ever replace the ability to post lengthy updates for worried relatives on CarePages.

The example of Del Monte’s Snausages Breakfast Bites at first seemed a bit silly to me. Customers could just tell you what they wanted and you’d make it? Del Monte would probably answer “yes”. This got me thinking about how such a system was used (on a much smaller scale) right here at Clark University. A couple years ago, Clark Dining Services decided to implement a comment board in our dining hall. Students can make suggestions and comments as well as ask questions. Comments range from “Shrimp on pizza is a terrible idea, please never make it again” to “Can you put a container of sprinkles next to the soft-serve ice cream from now on?” And the staff listens! I thought this was a perfect example of how groundswell works for companies. Students can tell the staff what they like, what should be changed, and what should be created. There are now always sprinkles next to the ice cream in the dining hall and suddenly the Snausages don’t seem so silly.   

Original Post Week 2

We tend to think of the internet as pretty un-moderated, especially after the Groundswell reading. It seems as though people are free to post whatever content they like, regardless of how others may feel about it. Because of this assumption, I was very surprised when I read an article titled “Policing the Web’s Lurid Precincts” on the New York Times about people who are paid to sift through illicit content on the internet and remove images and videos that are deemed too intense or inappropriate. “Screeners” as they are called, are exposed to the most graphic, violent, and disturbing images on the internet and are expected to remove material that may be psychologically damaging.

The article focused on the psychological toll such a profession would have on someone and how counseling and higher pay incentives should be offered for the work. One sad and disturbing fact is that these jobs are in extremely high demand since there are so many social networking sites and other websites centered around user-generated content. And reading about the terrible images that content moderators are exposed to (sexual and violent content involving children and animals, for example) really made me wonder whether the anonymity of the internet brings out individuals’ darkest thoughts.

While I’m certainly not suggesting that the internet would be a better place if it wasn’t anonymous, I do wonder whether people would continue to post obscene content under their own name. Below is a YouTube video of a panel discussion in which Jimmy Wales, Andrew Keen, and Micah Sifry discuss how we can maintain civility on the internet.




As Andrew Keen points out, content on Facebook and Twitter, neither of which are anonymous, is much more civil. But I feel as though making the internet not anonymous would be taking away part of its essence. It is such an important outlet for individuals who live in places where they aren’t allowed to voice their opinion. But there must be a way to stop the posting of content that necessitates “screeners.”

Response Post Week 1

Prior to reading Groundswell, I thought of social media as primarily being utilized by individuals, not companies or businesses. I was very interested to learn about what a vital role groundswell plays in a company’s marketing strategies and how much of a business’s identity is shaped by its online presence. Although the increasing number of online outlets makes it more difficult for a company to have control over its image, they can also use this visibility to their advantage. Customer reviews and opinions can often dictate to a company what improvements are necessary and as discussed in chapter 5, listening to the groundswell and what customers are saying can be extremely important for a company.

The first chapter presents an example of GM’s Bob Lutz who began blogging about his company and “revolutionized the way GM communicates.” It didn’t necessarily transform the company as a whole, but gave them a competitive edge by enabling them to directly communicate with their customers. Aside from blogging, however, there are many other ways in which businesses can utilize social media that is not traditionally used professionally. Because so many people visit websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, companies see such websites as an opportunity for advertising and create pages on these sites. And while it may not seem very significant to me when I become a fan of The New York Times on Facebook and write a comment on their page, my comment may incite a discussion which can dictate to the business where improvements can be made.

Because most of the content on the internet is not monitored, I would assume that it would be risky for a company to participate in groundswell but the reading really showed how the saying “all publicity is good publicity” is true in this case. And although companies usually cannot control what is being said about them or their products, they certainly have ways to maximize their benefits from social media. As discussed in chapter 3, by creating a social technographics profile for their target consumers, companies can more effectively market to them. Basically, it pays to know your audience. This section also got me thinking about the side ads on Facebook that advertise to people based on their interests.

The first half of the book that we’ve read so far I have found very insightful. It allows me to look marketing from the supplier/producer point of view instead of consumer and shows me just how much thought goes into finding an appropriate ad to place on my Facebook page. And whereas before this reading I didn’t quite see how companies used social media, now I can’t understand how they marketed without it.

Original Post Week 1

I work part-time at the Admissions office here at Clark. We give campus tours and organize information sessions for prospective students as well as having one-on-one conversations with them. The other day, one of our admissions counselors proposed the implementation of conversations between prospective students and Clark students currently studying abroad via Skype. He argued that such a system would allow prospective students to see the many opportunities Clark provides.

This made me wonder how the increasing usage of social media in college marketing will affect the experience of prospective students and what impact it will ultimately have on their decision. Clark is currently in the process of building a new Admissions office that will include several flat screen televisions, interactive computer screens, and other equipment that will provide families with information and reduce the need for a large staff. There are also plans to set up live-feeds of information sessions on the screens if groups get too large to all attend.

I’m quite unhappy with many of the new proposed plans. Although these proposed changes are simply reflective of the advantages social media technology offers, it is becoming more apparent to me that our interactions with others are becoming seriously limited as a result. There is plenty of existing research that shows how our virtual interactions are becoming much more significant than time actually spent with others. Participants of Second Life certainly demonstrate a desire to live in cyber reality.

It would be naïve to assume that technological advances would not change the college search process. It was only a few decades ago when the only marketing tool colleges had were pamphlets and alumni. Now colleges have Twitter accounts that inform prospective students of application deadlines. They have Facebook pages that current students can become fans of and answer any questions. Clark has a live webcam of Red Square available on their website. Many of these advancements benefit prospective students who are able to learn so much about colleges without even visiting campus.

But I would argue that being able to speak with current students instead of “Skype-ing” with a counselor and walking around campus as opposed to taking a virtual tour create a much different and more significant experience for prospective students. It is always important to do everything in moderation and it appears as though the advancement of social media makes us underestimate the importance of personal connections. I fear that marketing sometimes goes too far in utilizing social media strategies and such heavy reliance of technology could have negative effects. Especially concerning something as important as picking a college, one’s feeling about the campus, its students, and general tone of the college are integral in making the right decision. Therefore elimination of such opportunities would result in many unhappy students.