These days, CMOs – Chief Marketing Officers – have a lot to do with strategic marketing and positioning of their companies. Most are tasked with major responsibilities when it comes to engagement, brand growth, demographics, and multimedia platforms.
I get especially interested when I read about marketers charged with turning around or transforming traditional brands – well-known products that perhaps have gotten a bit long in the tooth.
Yes, these stories often remind me of some of the battles we’re facing in radio. And I’m always trying to understand the strategies behind the decisions they make, especially when millions of dollars in marketing are in the mix.
So, imagine my reaction when I read this quote in eMarketer:
“During our lifetime, brands like Sears and Woolworths have come and gone. We have no automatic right to exist or thrive in a rapidly changing world. We are always going to be respectful of our heritage, but we’re not going to be bound by it.”
Who said it?
Tony Weisman, CMO of Dunkin’ Donuts – now better known as just Dunkin’. We’ll get to the rebrand of this iconic product in a moment.
Weisman’s proclamation about aging brands that have to re-establish their value in a highly competitive marketplace is a statement you might imagine a grizzled radio broadcasting CEO making.
In the case of Dunkin’ Donuts, is the decision to drop the “donuts” akin to a radio company dumping the R-word?
Weisman goes on to explain the thinking behind this decision:
“Dunkin’ Donuts was our original name, but we’ve had a number of different names over the years. Dunkin’ is very colloquial, friendly and easier to
communicate in our packaging and advertising. It’s the original font, but refreshed, brighter. It also was a way to underscore our heavier focus on beverages than on doughnuts. … We’re not out of the doughnut business. But our growth and the industry growth is in coffee and related beverages. By being just Dunkin’, it’s easier for us to be all-in.”
If “beverages” is tantamount to “streaming,” Weisman sounds like a radio executive explaining why the company is changing its name. Is that a smart decision for Dunkin’ (Donuts)? Is it a savvy choice by a radio exec?
Of course, part of the DD calculus revolves around demographics. Just like radio, Dunkin’ Donuts is an aging brand, far more popular with Gen Xers and Boomers. Millennials? Not so much.
Unlike most radio broadcasters, Weisman and the Dunkin’ team realize a crusade for youth is now a company imperative.
“We’re a 70-year-old brand and have a lot of customers who’ve grown up with us and are fans for life. But in the last generation or so, a lot of people came to their caffeine habit through Frappuccinos at Starbucks. We didn’t have compelling alternative products, and they became latte lovers at Starbucks and the like…most of our energy is (now) focused on bringing younger consumers into the brand who have grown up and haven’t naturally followed their parents into the brand as much as we would have hoped.”
If you replace “Frappuccino” and “Starbucks” with “streaming” and “Spotify,” Weisman may as well be a CMO for a radio company trying to recast its image and appeal to an emerging audience that is spending time elsewhere. The difference is that radio execs rarely, if ever, talk about appealing to younger generations.
Dunkin’s new efforts are analogous to radio in other ways. Consider Weisman’s four-prong plan to transform his aging brand:
- Digital offerings – Dunkin’ has focused on digital, including a new app (“I’m very proud of that,” notes Weisman), serving up coupons that match the weather, and other smart uses of technology.
- Strategic partnerships – In the quest to target Millennials, Dunkin’ has put together collabs with brands that include Saucony and Harpoon Beer. They may be unrelated to donuts, but they are connection points with young consumers.
- Word of mouth – From Giphy to stickers, the concept is to allow young Dunkin’ coffee drinkers (the gateway drug) to post and share content. As Weisman notes, “I’m a big believer in peer-to-peer.” And as we know a recommendation for Dunkin’ from a friend trumps any marketing the brand can do.
- Product improvement – And of course, it’s about content. Weisman points to Dunkin’s previous lack of focus on coffee “content – analogous to a radio brand ignoring streaming and mobile. Dunkin’ now features a new menu, with an emphasis on espresso (sales now account for 10% of their overall product mix – a 50% jump).
The parallels to radio’s struggles to transform its business model are too obvious. While Dunkin’s strategies are fascinating, none of them have any chance of success without that final element – a focus on the product.
And that issue of dropping their traditional method of referral – “donuts” – is comparable to a broadcaster walking away from “radio.”
After reading this story in eMarketer by Lucy Koch, it was too tempting not to draw these obvious comparisons, and ask what you think about Dunkin’s new marketing model.
Like the smell of great donuts.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Telegraph and Teletype are icons of the past. Radio remains in constant use as primary to cars, audio delivery, music, news and local information. It’s the content and local presentation that continue to make RADIO recognizable and much more than an edible brand. RADIO remains the true, licensed and wireless service with significant economic value through multiple receivers.
Appreciate it, Clark.
Ya know, in an office environment where you share common areas with your colleagues, there’s often a box of donuts with a bunch of them cut in half and sometimes into smaller pieces. This also seems analogous to me. Folks in our industry are perfectly willing to cut that donut in half, show love to one half and leave the other to grow stale and sad and lonely in the breakroom until someone takes pity on it and begrudgingly consumes it. Dunkin did not stop selling donuts when they refreshed their brand and their donuts are still awesome. While the design is refreshed, the Dunkin box is still iconic and so a savvy media company can still have a refreshed, iconic radio product while investing in and growing its consumer base with new products on new platforms. As we move in that direction, this post reminds us not to cut ourselves in half and leave a portion behind to grow stale.
Very good, solid observations here, Abby, but you left me confused on one point. What are these “leftover” donuts you speak of?
Exactly, Dave.
I love this comment, Abby. I think it’s called content multitasking. Thanks for the thoughtful observation.
A ton of cliches come to mind in reading this. “Dance with who brung ya”…”A rose by any other name”..”lipstick on a…” well you know. Rebranding usually happens when an executive wants the CEO to know that “something” is happening. It’s a good way to extend one’s existence in the company. The gamble is whether it will work or not. I’d guess that unless the content improves, you’ll see a rebranding of the product within the next decade. Just a guess. (My guesses are usually right up there with marketing decisions.)
Well, same here. But it didn’t work or The Shack when they dropped the r-word.
Imagine if Dunkin had responded to increased competition by using cheaper ingredients for their donuts and cutting back on product options. Then, issued press releases noting that X% of America still uses Dunkin every month, noting that they have to “do a better job of telling their story” to consumers.
Would that be glaze donuts sweetened with Splenda?
And then cut staff so customer service dropped, people in line waited longer, the store wasn’t cleaned as often. I know let’s change our name! Sound familiar?
Having watched the radio industry over decades I’m thinking you’re positioning this as Gary Fries tried in the mid-oughts: https://www.audiographics.com/agd/042506-1.htm
End result is to talk around the differences.
Dunkin Doughnuts has considerably expanded its offerings with the caveat “Dunkin’ is very colloquial, friendly and easier to communicate in our packaging and advertising. It’s the original font, but refreshed, brighter.”
Radio, and I’ve had my eyes on this since retiring over a decade ago, continues to talk its way into a digital environment without really delivering the substance of digital media.
From the “Accountability Initiative” (which guaranteed the running of spots per the contract, not accounting for consumers’ who heard the spot as digital was doing) to podcasting, the radio industry did not change itself to meet digital but did a whiz-bang job of using words to try and convince others it was moving in that direction. It’s still in a smoke-and-mirrors mode.
Digital companies have “versions” which are released to improve consumer experience. When was the last time radio did a version upgrade offering “new” or “original”? Commercials are still constructed as they were in the 1960s. Same with music program. Talk has become far more caustic. Sports talk is the most recent new format.” All else is copying what digital companies do, then replicating it on the cheap. Sweetjack is a classic example, and LMIV is yet another attempt of many:
Network Radio Compliance Council
Radio Communicators Group
Radio 2020
Radio Heard Here
The HD Radio Alliance
Radio. You Hear It Here First
Less is More
Radio Creative Resource Group
Format Lab
TotalRadius
HD Radio University
WhyRadio?
Blink Ads
The International Broadcasters IdeaBank
None of the above were original, or lasting.
Radio is in a “Music of Your Life” moment. The time to change was in the early 2000s.
Ken, you’ve compiled quite a list of blown initiatives, half-baked plans, the lack of focus, investment, and industry consensus about what matters. The line that jumped out at me:
“Radio continues to talk its way into a digital environment without really delivering the substance of digital media.”
And who could forget Sweetjack?
Found this piece insightful. One issue I take. Beverages = streaming. I’m not sure that comparison works. Maybe podcasts -or – yet to be determined. I’m not sure radio CEOs have figured out, given this comparison to Dunk’n, what radio’s beverage “is”. What will attract youth who didn’t follow the previous generation into our “store”. That’s most worrisome.
Interesting question, Steve: what is radio’s beverage? Maybe if you could liquify companionship. But could you serve it up to kids? Thanks for the note.