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 »