Dunkin Donuts Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)

Published in Services category by MBA Skool Team

Marketing Strategy of Dunkin Donuts analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on Dunkin Donuts marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the Dunkin Donuts Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:

Dunkin Donuts Product Strategy:

The product strategy and mix in Dunkin Donuts marketing strategy can be explained as follows:

Dunkin Donuts focused only on selling donuts of many varieties and its signature double brewed coffee. With time, they diversified their product portfolio in their marketing mix and started selling other baked confectionaries like, bagels, cookies, muffins etc. Out of the total sales only 8-9% of the sales revenue comes from Donuts. 64-65% comes from drinks and the rest comes from sale of other baked food items. Some of the al time favorites of customers of Dunkin Donuts are, egg and cheese, hash browns, maple sugar bacon sandwich. The drinks served at Dunkin Donuts include coffee, tea, iced tea, hot chocolate, coffee with cream, latte, fruit juices etc. They have more than 1000 food on their menu now. The healthy food menu is a hit among customers.

The menu keeps on changing depending on the season. During winters, customers have the option to have peppermint hot chocolate. Dunkin Donuts has the tagline ‘Dunkin Donuts and more’. A food chain is expected to serve drinks, sandwiches and burgers as well. The company has revamped its menu according to the country it is serving in. Vegetarian options are also available to attract the vegetarian crowd. Juice and smoothies of various flavors like mango, litchi and hot chocolate are also available.


Image: Wikimedia


Dunkin Donuts Price/Pricing Strategy:

Below is the pricing strategy in Dunkin Donuts marketing strategy:

Dunkin Donuts products are moderately priced and kept close to competition, as the company wants to make things affordable and attract more crowd. Dunkin Donuts is targeting the urban crowd of age 35 years and below.

The pricing strategy in the marketing mix of the brand is also dependent on the country in which they are present. Global pricing is used by Dunkin Donuts to ensure high quality product offerings at affordable prices to customers.

Dunkin Donuts Place & Distribution Strategy:

Following is the distribution strategy in the Dunkin Donuts marketing mix:

Dunkin Donuts have successfully established themselves more than 40 countries. Shops are set up in important places with high footfall to attract young urban crowd. Its market expansion has happened in Asian countries like India and China. Freshly produced eatables are sent to food chains directly within 24 hours.

From here, the food is sold directly to consumers. As a part of its delivery service, the brand has partnership with several delivery apps & partners to deliver food at home.


Dunkin Donuts Promotion & Advertising Strategy:

The promotional and advertising strategy in the Dunkin Donuts marketing strategy is as follows:

Dunkin Donuts promotes its brand by using a brightly colored coffee cup logo. It makes the brand memorable and leaves a good impression in the minds of the people. Print media, online ads in websites, television ads are used to promote the brand. Long gone are the times when Dunkin Donuts were all about donuts. Today it has locked its horns with coffee brands like Starbucks, Barista etc. Now it has to stay relevant among calorie conscious, healthy yet tasty food seeking consumers. Its new tagline ‘Dunkin. Coffee and more’ was seen in a few storefronts of Pasadena, Calif. This trend was also seen in Dunkin shops in Delhi. People from India are not into the donut eating culture yet. The company wants to shed its Donut heavy image and be a coffee products leader. Catchy tagline like ‘Dunkin. Coffee and more’, ‘America runs on Dunkin’, ‘you ‘kin do it’, ‘get your mojo back’ have played well for the company in promoting the brand. The biggest way Dunkin Donuts stays relevant in any new market even after 67 years of operating in various countries, is by localizing the brand and making it suit the local market. Loyalty programs like, DD perks program, discount coupons, buy one get one free” promotions.


Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of Dunkin Donuts


People:

Dunkin Donuts knows the importance of serving its customers. Hence the company has a lot of focus on its people i.e. its customers as well as staff. The staff at the outlets are very well trained and are well equipped to serve to the customer needs. The company gives its employees intense training so that they are well verse in ensuring a great customer experience, which is a must for a service brand.


Process:

Dunkin Donuts has several business processes which help the business grow. The business processes can be procurement of raw materials, distributing them to different locations, preparation of food items etc. The processes at the outlets are also very well defined. World over streamlined processes have helped Dunkin Donuts establish a strong presence in the fast food segment.


Physical Evidence:

Dunkin Donuts has several outlets, which is the biggest physical evidence of the brand. The brand is present in more than 40 countries with more than 12000 outlets. Apart from the restaurants, many things like merchandize, indoor branding, boxes, mugs etc. show the physical presence of the brand. Hence this completes the marketing mix of Dunkin Donuts.


About Dunkin Donuts:

Dunkin Donuts is an American company based in Canton. William Rosenberg in Quincy founded it in the year 1950. The company since then has expanded and grown into an excellent coffee and food chain. In his early years, Rosenberg used to sell food in factories. There he noticed that the most sold foods were donuts and coffee. With this idea in mind, he started his food chain Dunkin Donuts and started selling franchises from the year 1955. In 1990, Allied Domecq purchased Dunkin Donuts.

The brands Baskin Robins and Togo’s were launched soon after. The company claims to be the largest coffee and baked food chain in the world. In 2020, the brand was acquired by Inspire Brands group for $11 billion.

This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse marketing strategy and 4Ps analysis of more brands similar to Dunkin Donuts. The Marketing Strategy & Mix section covers 4Ps and 7Ps of more than 800 brands in 2 categories.

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The names and other brand information used in the Marketing Strategy & Mix section are properties of their respective companies. The companies are not associated with MBA Skool in any way.

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