Dunkin’ Donuts, as the name suggests, is a donut company, but now it’s better known as a beverage-led company after its rebranding in 2019. It was founded in 1950 by Bill Rosenberg and was a quick-service restaurant that became successful, only 13 years later opening its 100th location.
Today it has nearly 13,000 locations spread in over 30 countries, most of them being in the US. The company became the most popular donut shop in the world and now it is conquering Twitter as well.
They have 1.3M followers and a few times a week, they post a witty tweet, most often having to do with drinking coffee, being addicted to it and not being able to function without it. In their description they show they are aware of it, "America runs on Dunkin' tweets."
Posting such tweets can be quite beneficial to a company as using social media in general helps with engagement and creating a closer relationship with the customer. Harvard Business Review states “If you told them great stories and connected with them in real time, your brand would become a hub for a community of consumers.”
Bored Panda talked with marketing specialist Bianca Polizzi and she confirmed social media is "a channel to portray your personality to your target audience - it’s a way to connect on a deeper level with your target clients, to gain and build their loyalty while growing your brand through, what is essentially, free advertisements. It’s all about being in the headspace of your target audience to make sales in the end."
Rival IQ points out that people come to social media for comic relief and many brands are embracing their humorous side to “stay relevant, and top of mind among consumers, particularly the typically hard to impress Gen Z.”
It all started with Wendy’s savage roasts on their Twitter page targeted at other companies. Better Marketing Pub pointed out that this strategy was very successful because that year, Wendy’s net income increased from $129.6 million to $194 million.
Other brands started to take advantage of their social media as well. Not all of them were so extreme, though, and were content with a couple of memes in their feed. Dunkin’ Donuts’ approach was to include what they're selling in short, inoffensive thoughts about coffee.
But of course, social media isn’t everything and as Rival IQ points out, “The brands have consistent products and reliable service, so they can afford to take some risks in how they use social media.” Also, this model wouldn’t work for every company: a donut business may allow themselves to joke around on social media, but you may find it distasteful if a bank did something similar.
Bianca Polizzi also thinks that jokes on social media suits Dunkin' Donuts and it doesn't make the company see less reliable, 'it’s a clear sign of their target audience and what they are looking for from social media because that’s how they are engaging with them - and to be fair, it’s working because it’s getting us talking about them - and as the saying goes, any publicity is good publicity!"
The marketing specialist thinks that these kinds of jokes are free entertainment and to grow on social media you have to provide your audience with "something for free, whether that’s informative, educational or comedic - people need to be gaining something from your page so that seems like a logical social media strategy for Dunkin’ Donuts."
However, Bianca believes that the company should still carefully think about what they are posting even if their feed isn't that serious to begin with, "Don’t just jump on trends… really be conscious about what you choose to engage in and share - try understand if what you’re saying will be of value to others or if you’ll just be putting harm and negative energy into the world. When you use humour, you’re looking to give people joy, so keep that rule at the forefront of your mind always before you post to avoid backlash."
Do you find Dunkin’ Donuts’ tweets funny? Which ones are your favorite? How do you feel about companies taking their social media less seriously and sharing posts as if they were sending them to their friends? Let us know your thoughts in the comments and upvote your favorite tweets.
