While our fans knew us by Dunkin’ Donuts for nearly 70 years, it was time to invite re-appraisal…and drop the ‘Donuts.’

As one of the world’s most beloved brands, our challenge was to announce the name change in an authentic way our fans could get behind. It required a delicate balance of acknowledging our rich heritage and love, while also showing America we’re evolving, and better yet, modernizing.

We based our creative platform on the key insight: We’ve always been close to our guests. This was particularly true in the way many of our guests refer to us “Dunkin’,” “Dunks,” or “Dunkies.” They treat us like their wingman—a good friend. 

This long-standing relationship led us to our core idea: We’ve been BFFs with our fans since the start, and now we’re making it official. We announced it with a creative platform that we knew would resonate, and soften the ground for our next chapter.

The Creative platform: We’re going on first-name basis with America.

We even gave away handmade friendship bracelets to commemorate the change to BFF status.

Results

• Social media erupted after the announcement, generating over 30K social media mentions, and becoming a trending topic on Twitter.

• The name change garnered the most media in the brand’s 70-year history, featuring our social content, with 3 billion media impressions from outlets including New York Times, Today, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

• Dunkin' climbed Piper Jaffray's list of American teens' favorite chains (Source: Piper Jaffray)

• One week after the announcement, Dunkin’s Buzz score climbed from 12 to 21 among the general public, indicating that an increasing number of US consumers were hearing something good about the brand. (Source: YouGov)

• After the rebrand, Dunkin’ jumped 73 percent in value, putting it among the 10 biggest year-over-year gainers in the country in 2019. (Source: Boston Biz Journal)