No, this isn’t about a clever media buy. Seth Stevenson from Slate (see the post below) did an audio version of his Dunkin’ ad review for NPR. He’s got a good public radio voice — fits right in with Carl Kassell and Nina Totenberg. Check it out here.
You realize there isn’t a licensing board for ad critics. Pretty much anyone who can type and watch TV (not necessarily simultaneously) gets a chance these days to weigh in on the worthiness of an ad campaign. So it’s nice to see somebody take the time and effort to actually write about advertising in a way that takes into account the business situation, brand history, and the pop culture territory at play. Seth Stevenson over at Slate did just that today in his ‘Advertising Deconstructed’ column about the new Dunkin’ Donuts campaign.
Now, of course we like it because of the grade we got. But check out Seth’s insightfullness at getting to the core of the strategic challenge. Here’s how he sets it up: Continue reading »
I just had a mini-relevalation: Clients don’t want to kill ads. Okay, maybe there are a few evil, sadistic ones out there who do. But rational, everyday marketing managers? Nuh-uh.
Think about it. Does a client who went to B-school feel comfortable arguing headlines and type treatments and script dialogue? Probably not. They just want work that pays off on a clear, agreed-upon strategy. Problem is, most times, you start making work before agreement is ever reached.
Not so long ago, the iPod was the darling of the pay-as-you-go set.
This, they assured us, was the future of television. All the episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives you could ever want would be just a download away, all for the low low price of just $1.99 per episode. And this was just the beginning. Soon,very soon, a whole megaverse of content would be available to us and never a commercial would we lay eyes on again.
If you saw the Wall Street Journal article over the weekend, you know that Dunkin’ Donuts has some big ambitions. Continue reading »
Pole? Check. Bait? Check. Dunkin’? Check.
Today’s a big day for Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s the public launch of a new brand positioning for the company as it embarks on a major push for expansion and growth. A lot of strategic and creative work went into this project, the result of which was a new tagline, new iconography, and most importantly — a very focused brand idea that gets executed across every possible part of a consumer’s experience with Dunkin’ Donuts. You can read about the business challenge and some of the research that sparked our thinking in a front page Wall Street Journal article that ran over the weekend. It’s online here (subscription required).
This is our first major campaign debut since we started our blog, so we thought we’d ask the people that did the thinking and the work to write about it over the coming days. It’s a nice case study, and our blog posts will give you a behind-the-scenes peek at the development of what we think will be a great marketing platform for a great brand. We’ll also post some of the work here so you can see it all in one place.
