No.1 Spot for Insight-Driven Dunkin'

US chain Dunkin' Donuts has deposed coffee giant Starbucks in customer loyalty ratings for the first time. NYC-based Brand Keys Inc. said Dunkin', whose insight head Regina Lewis featured last year in MRWho, had given its brands 'the right values and the right sense of community'.

The annual customer loyalty survey has included a coffee and doughnuts category for five years, and has previously been topped by Starbucks. The survey measures how well a company meets loyal customers' expectations based on location and value, in-store experience and service, quality and taste, and variety and range of offerings.

Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys' founder and President, said Dunkin' is seen to have a 'significant advantage' via a stronger loyalty bond with its regular customers. Quoted in the Boston Herald, Passikoff attributed Dunkin's first-place finish to a successful branding campaign and moves by Starbucks that have shifted it from a coffee brand to more of a lifestyle brand.

Says Passikoff: 'Everything that Dunkin' has done, whether it's been intentional or it's been serendipitous based on constraints in marketing, they've done pretty well. (It's) been resonating as far as the right values and the right sense of community that brands like this need to survive.'

Lewis, VP of Dunkin' Brands' Consumer and Brand Insights Group, told MRWho last March that Starbucks had 'a brilliant business' but stressed the difference in approach of the two companies – 'It's not us versus Starbucks'. She also highlighted the key role of insight within Dunkin': 'Our philosophy here, and certainly our CEO and leadership council philosophy, is that it is only through insights that we can formulate smart strategy...' Dunkin's innovative research agenda included paying loyal, regular customers to go and eat / drink at the competition's stores for a while, to assess feedback.

Brand Keys, which now partners with Brandweek to award category winners, added the coffee and doughnuts category five years ago and this is the first time Dunkin' has overtaken Starbucks. The rating is based on those who buy coffee three or more times a week, in telephone surveys of 20,000 US adults.

Web sites: www.bostonherald.com , www.dunkindonuts.com .

The full interview with Regina Lewis is available online at www.mrweb.com/drno/frm-dunkin.htm . Details of MRWho, the 'People and Skills supplement' of Daily Research News, are at www.mrweb.com/who .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.