By Heather Blanchette

Founded in 1950 in Quincy, Massachusetts by William Rosenberg, Dunkin Donuts has 2.7 Million customers a day worldwide. The Dunkin Donuts franchise has 5,541 locations in the United States, 79 in Canada and 1,846 franchises in the rest of the world.

Dunkin Donuts used to be Allied Domecq Quick Service Restaurant and is often paired with Dunkin Donuts Brands Incorporated’s Baskin Robbins. Competition for the doughnut and coffee chain includes Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Caribou Coffee, and Tim Hortons.

Dunkin Donuts offers a variety of products including 35 varieties of donuts, munchkins, pastries, muffins, bagels, cookies, breakfast sandwiches, flatbread sandwiches, hashbrowns, pizza, coffee, collatas, hot chocolate, iced tea and smoothies.

Dunkin Donuts sponsors the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island, which is often referred to as “The Dunk.”

At the beginning of each Boston Red Sox or New England Patriots season, Dunkin Donuts releases coinciding commercials that promote the team in relation to Dunkin Donuts products.

In the 1980s, Dunkin Donuts ran an advertising campaign titled “It’s Worth The Trip,” which starred fictional character “Fred The Baker.” The campaign was recognized by the Television Bureau of Advertising as one of the 5 best commercials of the 80s with its “Time To Make The Donuts” tagline.

In 2006, Dunkin Donuts began running advertisements to compare the Dunkin Donut chain to competitors in the market. The ads claimed that competitors menu items were hard to read and produce, and therefore hard to order. The campaign, created by Hill Holiday, called the competitors menu language “Fritalian,” a mix between French and Italian. The ads poked the most fun at Starbucks, and showed how much easier, and “American,” Dunkin Donuts is.

In 2007, the campaign continued with advertisements featuring customers being yelled at in the competitor chains for ordering a “Large” coffee, rather than using a foreign name for the size.

2007 was also the year that actor John Goodman became the voice used in Dunkin Donuts commercials, as well as the year Rachel Ray began starring in many of the commercials.

Dunkin Donuts also rana Sip, Scratch, Score promotion in 2007, similar to the McDonalds monopoly game piece promotion. Another advertising campaign was created using the personification of a coffee cup, given the name Joe Dunkin. The ads revolved around sports teams including the Mets, Yankees, Giants, Nets and Jets. In many of the commercials the cup, Joe, was a player on the team standing in for an important field position.

Dunkin Donuts also published an easy-bake-oven recipe for doughnuts.

The current Dunkin Donuts campaign tagline is “America Runs On Dunkin,” and the most recent Rachel Ray online campaign was yankeed this week due to controversy around the possible political meaning the scarf she was wearing.

By Heather Blanchette

One of my best friends has a clever rating system for the Dunkin Donuts of the Northeast. He, a true Masshole, has traveled far and wide to find the best Dunkin Donuts in the state, and with his fantastic memory can remember which ones were great, which one’s really missed the mark and all those in between.

The one we hit up today was a 7 out of 10, which is a very adequate rating for him. Not only was the service relatively fast, although they did have to “look in the back” before they could tell me if they had a Coolata machine (skeevy), but they also got his order right. He’s convinced most Dunkies are out to kill him. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jordan Thompson

It’s scary how one box of cereal can define your whole breakfast existence! Kellogg’s Fruit Loops have been around since the early sixties unlike me who was an 80’s baby. Toucan Sam is one of the most recognizable character brands and also has a slogan “Follow Your Nose” that is hard to forget when you have been eating Fruit Loops for as long as I have. So what is it about this cereal brand that still has me all hot and heavy for them after all these years? Read the rest of this entry »

By Heather Blanchette

While eating my blackened toast this morning, I realized I hated breakfast. This realization made my stomach feel like I had eaten an entire quarry, and no that’s not just because my toast was hard as a rock.

I’m sick of breakfast; I’m sick of toast and butter, I’m sick of bagels and cream cheese, and I’m sick of sugared cereals all the way to healthy cereals that tastes like sandpaper. I’m sick of all of it…

Except for…The Breakfast Of Champions! Read the rest of this entry »

By Heather Blanchette

Sophomore year of college I had what can only be described as an unhealthy addiction to rice crispy treats. Every night I would leave my dorm room and trek down the street to the nearest dining hall to buy an overpriced, brick sized rice crispy block; only to have finished the entire thing before I even got back to my room. Seriously, the amount of rice crispy blocks I ate that year could probably have paved half of Boston.

After moving further up campus Junior year, the craving continued. Since the dining hall was further, and I am lazy, I decided to try my hand at making my own rice crispy treats. Rather than walk five minutes down the road to Shaws, I decided to buy cereal from the small convenience store right downstairs. They did not carry Kellogs Rice Krispies cereal though, which seemed like a disappointment at the time.

I perused the display of cereal for what seemed like hours, especially since the cereal “wall” consisted of only six different cereals, two of which were healthy, so those were out, obviously. I was left to make a decision between Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Frosted Cheerios. For fear of making the sales associates suspicious by standing there any longer, I grabbed all four boxes, emptied the shelf of marshmallows, and bought two packs of butter.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Heather Blanchette

When it’s cold outside, nobody wants to take the time to travel in the morning to their local coffee shop to buy a dozen doughnuts, yet the craving doesn’t go away! That’s why I found an easy home-made doughnut recipe! With a pack of Pillsbury grand dinner rolls, sugar, cinnamon and oil, you can make a batch of doughnuts that rivals any large coffee chain’s assortment. Read the rest of this entry »