Situation:

Every year, Valentine’s Day presents a massive opportunity for Dunkin’ and is one of their biggest days of the year for donut sales. As part of the festivities, Dunkin’ regularly changes the look of their regular offering, donuts, by producing them in heart shapes and decorating them with special sprinkles.

Brief:

Our brief was to drive awareness and consideration with consumers who are rarely loyal to Dunkin’ for their everyday coffee or snacking needs. We wanted them to think of Dunkin’ products as a perfect Valentine’s Day gift for anyone.

Objectives:

Our aim with this campaign was to beat last year’s performance in bulk donut sales and grow our social share of voice.

To tap into the nostalgia of classic Valentine’s Day imagery, we created a printed, perforated, high-gloss sheet of “Dunkintines” cards, designed to evoke the classic Valentine’s Day cards that many of us remember exchanging in elementary school. These cards featured licensed properties and silly puns, along with some classic design hallmarks that screamed 1990s—a decade that our target audience is particularly familiar with. We created a dozen cards to be given out with the purchase of a dozen donuts, inherently encouraging our customers to choose the perfect card to give to a friend as they naturally gave out the sweet treats. This ritual was designed to feel just like being back in school—rifling through a pack of cards to find the perfect card for a schoolyard crush.

Data gathering, target audience

Through a combination of social listening and syndicated reports, we found that the conversation about Valentine’s Day had changed among our audience. As a group that is rarely loyal to any brand, let alone to a quick-service coffee retailer, they have become wary of the standard red-and-white representation of Valentine’s Day themes. These days, Valentine’s Day has expanded to mean more than hearts and roses, and more than romantic love. It has grown to include the love of friends, family, coworkers, pets, and everything in between.

Approach

Donuts are a universal delight, and while Dunkin’ Valentine’s Day donuts might come in heart shapes, they’re more playful and unexpected than your standard V. Day fare. Our approach was to show consumers how Dunkin’ donuts are perfect for sharing with whomever.

Call to action

Say it with donuts.

All cards were designed using hallmarks of commercialized 1990s design—bright colors, heavy drop shadows, halftone patterns, and the blending of illustrated and vector backgrounds with cut-out photographic elements. We initially released our cards as physical, printed sheets in stores, then mirrored this launch with digital versions of the cards, designed to work in animated, carousel, and Instagram story formats. Several days before Valentine’s Day, we created one last media push, using Twitter to send brand Dunkintines to almost three-dozen companies, sports organizations, and influencers. Each of these cards was specifically tailored to each brand, marrying the visual language of our retro, intentionally gaudy style with visual cues from that brand’s logo, style guide, or color palette.

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Value for consumer

For consumers, physical Dunkintines added a little celebratory value to our regular offering. There were 951,125 sheets printed and distributed among all our retail locations. These sheets of retro-style Valentine’s Day cards were given away to any consumers who purchased a dozen donuts in the days leading up to V. Day.