Cereal will resent your Dunkin' Donuts habit
I haven't been a big fan of Hill, Holliday's recent Dunkin' Donuts work, but this latest "Where's Dan?" ad strikes just the right chord. There's a cube-jockey workplace setup, and I figured we were in for some more stale Office-style banter. Not so! The real action's back home in Dan's cupboard, where animated cereal-box characters bemoan their former breakfast mate's newfound love of Dunkin' food. It's a cute idea done well, and it resonates with me, because as a kid I'd hold entire conversations with Toucan Sam, Cap'n Crunch and the Trix rabbit at the breakfast table. But that was 30 years ago, and today I know better. The Cap'n's evil and just wants to escape his cardboard frigate and embark on a bloody quest for world domination. Tony the Tiger's the only one I listen to now. What's that, Tony? I should buy more Frosted Flakes because they're grrrr-eat? —Posted by David Gianatasio See also: |
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Published on September 11, 2009 | Permalink
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Dunkin' Donuts helps plump up the piggies"It's breakfast, not broke-fest, at Dunkin'," the voiceover says in this Hill, Holliday Dunkin' Donuts spot, just in case viewers were conflicted on
that point. Now, the notion of feeding coins to a pen full of shimmying piggy banks is OK with me. In fact, it's a recurring daydream of mine, and I
always start squealing like Ned Beatty in Deliverance. That probably explains why they make me sit all alone in a row of empty cubicles. Still, the
whole "pig" motif, talk of having "more spare change to deal with" and the casting of a chubby actor as the farmer (this has been an expanding trend in Dunkin' ads) reminds me that I should cut back to a single Boston Kreme per day. OK, maybe two. |
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Published on July 20, 2009 | Permalink
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App battle: Whole Foods vs. Dunkin' Donuts
Whole Foods Market and Dunkin' Donuts both launched iPhone apps within the past week. Let's compare them. The Whole Foods "Fresh Apple" app helps folks plan and prepare healthy meals on the go. The Dunkin' app facilitates the purchase and consumption of donuts. The Whole Foods app lets users search by ingredients, special dietary needs and budgetary concerns. The Dunkin' app allows you to order a sausage, egg and cheese on croissant and a large coffee, light and sweet, digitally instead of out loud, to avoid public shame. Whole Foods: carrots, peas, broccoli—maybe broccolini, if you're lucky. Dunkin': powdered sugar, cream filling, chocolate-glazed. Dunkin's app also helps coordinate workplace "Dunkin' Runs." Yeah, that wording's unfortunate, but Fred from facilities will probably pay for it out of petty cash, so the coffee and donuts will be free! —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on June 24, 2009 | Permalink
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Dunkin' to sell Alabama man's wacky donut
Jeff Hager of Alabama has won the $12,000 grand prize in the "Create Dunkin's Next Donut" contest for his "Toffee for Your Coffee" entry. I guess Barry Switzer was too preoccupied messing with people in the park to enter. Hager's creation will be sold nationwide in the fall. Apparently, it's a glazed sour-cream cake confection with chopped Heath Bars on top. Frankly, that doesn't sound sweet enough to me. And one wonders: Why not also fill it with chopped Heath Bars? Well, why the hell not?! Sorry, I had a couple Dunkin' larges and a load of Munchkins, and I'm a bit keyed up. After all, it's National Donut Day! Though, to be honest, that's every day for me. |
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Published on June 5, 2009 | Permalink
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Avoid the creepy park dweller Barry SwitzerAdweek's Eleftheria Parpis enjoyed this cross-promo spot by Hill, Holliday for SpikeTV's Pros vs. Joes and Dunkin' Donuts. I find it creepy. Ex-college football coach and sportscaster Barry Switzer pops out from behind a tree and babbles about "ball protection" and "rocks" to a couple of young guys. He’s also carrying around a football dressed as a baby. One of the dudes IDs Switzer in an awkward fashion, perhaps in an attempt to let the audience in on the joke, but Barry still just seems like a naughty, nutty old man bugging folks in the park. Maybe he had one too many Dunkin' turbo shots before donning the red windbreaker. Those nerds he pesters would be well advised to go long before Coach suggests a huddle. |
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Published on June 5, 2009 | Permalink
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Pedroia defeats Goliath in new Dunkin' spot
American League MVP Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox enhances his performance with a turbo-shot-infused Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee in this spot by Hill, Holliday. The Biblical theme caught me off-guard. It's not like he plays for the Angels or the Padres. And given baseball's doping controversies, the idea of a batter ingesting anything to pump up his prowess seems risky. Maybe it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, or edgy. Still, it's great to see Mark McGwire getting some work as Goliath! I guess freakishly bulking up on steroids pays off after all. |
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Published on April 27, 2009 | Permalink
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Are Dunkin' Donuts better for you than TV?
Hill, Holliday calls this Dunkin' Donuts spot "Tractor Beam," but that freaky TV seems to be channeling (ha!) Poltergeist more than Star Trek, as it pulls the kids toward the screen. When Dad opens a box of Dunkin' treats on the kitchen table, the spell, or beam, is broken. The voiceover explains that it's all about "getting the family together with a tasty doughnut." That's an oddly Homer Simpson-esque sentiment that assumes eating sugary fried dough is somehow preferable to viewing televised fare. The proposition may hold true if the kids were watching Bill O'Reilly or that cinematic crap on AMC, but otherwise I'm not so sure. Consider the round-faced, solidly built (wink, wink) father in the spot. He should lay off the chocolate frosteds and serve up some salad. He should at least switch stations to an exercise show or, better yet, take those kids outside so they can work off all the calories he's stuffing down their throats. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on March 31, 2009 | Permalink
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Dunkin' Donuts rips Starbucks' decaf policy
As the economy continues to sour, the trend toward bitch-slap advertising intensifies. Best Buy kicked around Circuit City, but that wasn't much of a challenge, as the latter had already gone belly up. Now, perhaps revved up on its own java and triple-glazed treats, Dunkin' Donuts gets all up in Starbucks' grill in a newspaper ad from Hill, Holliday. The copy takes Seattle's finest to task for brewing decaf in the afternoon only by special request. Brags Dunkin': "We don't work around our schedule, we work around yours. Get what you want, when you want it. Because at Dunkin' Donuts, you kin' do it." My advice: They kin' grab a decaf and chill. The recession's ad wars have just started. And if that Jack in the Box freak recovers from getting hit by that bus, I shudder to think of the paid-media carnage to come! —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on February 5, 2009 | Permalink
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'You kin' do it,' says a giddy Dunkin' Donuts
Hill, Holliday's latest advertising for Dunkin' Donuts introduces the rallying cry, "You kin' do it!" Thankfully, there's a press release which explains that "kin' do" is literally part of the DunKIN DOnuts name. Without seeing the ads, I never would have figured that out on my own, at least not before my large with six sugars. See three more new commercials here. The press release says the new campaign "cheers on the everyday people who keep America running by reminding them they can take on any task: you kin' make it through the workday, you kin' shovel out that driveway, you kin' pass that exam, you kin' finish that paperwork." Well, you kin' also join a gym to work off that bulbous butt after quaffing all those chocolate frosteds, though I doubt that iteration will make it into the campaign. Frankly, after eating a bunch of donuts, I don't feel like I kin' do much of anything. I usually just need a nap. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on January 5, 2009 | Permalink
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Dunkin' claims taste-test win vs. Starbucks
Hill, Holliday has created a new commercial and Web site touting blind taste-test results favoring Dunkin' Donuts coffee over Starbucks. I conducted a test of my own, pounding down Dunkin' coffee non-stop all day yesterday and Starbucks today to see which buzz is more righteous and "far out." For kicks, I also wore a blindfold. The Dunkin' coffee made me hallucinate that the sexy field researcher in the ad morphed into a giant Dutch man-cat who got my doughnut order wrong over and over, just like the counter help at Dunkin' in real life. After my first dozen Starbucks lattes, I stripped to my shorts, adopted the nerdy mannerisms of John Hodgman and tried to convince co-workers that Vista's not really that bad, all while standing on my head. AdFreak's lawyers have advised me to add: Do not try drinking this much coffee at home! I am a professional blogger and do stuff like this all the time! (Or at least I say I do.) Now, what's a guy gotta do to get a refill around here? |
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Published on October 21, 2008 | Permalink
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America plods along laboriously on Dunkin'
Compare Hill, Holliday's latest Dunkin' Donuts spot, "Uphill Battle," with the chain's "Doin' Things" ad from a few years back. The new spot's coffee addicts seem kinda pokey, while their 2006 counterparts rush here and there, doing things. Even after sipping, the current crew are awfully mellow, and their uphill progress is plodding at best. They're drinking coffee, and Dunkin' doesn't use heavy trans-fats anymore in its baked goods, so these worker bees should really be energized. Heck, that guy lazing on the tire should be rolling himself to work in that thing! The tagline's not, "America plods on Dunkin'," unless they've changed it, which is possible, because I was too jazzed on Starbucks to sit through the last five seconds. Lord, I miss those trans-fats. And what happened to They Might Be Giants on the soundtrack? That tune really sticks in your head. "Doin' things is what I like to do!" Oh man, where's my air guitar? —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on October 2, 2008 | Permalink
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