Dunkin' Donuts v. Starbucks

So I must say that I've taken note of Dunkin' Donuts this year. Watch out any company who sells coffee. They're after you. Just ask Starbucks. In fact, you don't have to ask them. Go online, turn on the t.v. or listen to the radio.

Dunkin' Donuts is shouting from the rooftops that they beat Starbucks in a taste test. Yes, taste tests make it on list of advertising things I don't like ...or I believe "loathe" is how I referred to my feelings on advertising in my first blog entry. A thirdy party research company proclaimed this... a company DD obviously commissioned to do the taste test in a way that the results would come out in their favor.

(Side note: Doing a taste test implies that people can't figure out for themselves that your product is better than a competitor's. Now why might that be....?)

The thing is I've tried DD's coffee. Twice. I thought with all of the advertising and publicity play there must be some substance there. So I tried it. I am definitely not a conneisure of coffee, but I could even tell it was bad coffee. The first cup I purchased was burned. The second time it tasted like coffee flavored water. Don't get me wrong. I'm not that big a fan of Starbucks. Coffee Bean is the coffee shop with my heart but wow. Really? I think Starbucks would be embarrassed if they had sold cups of coffee as bad as the ones I had from DD.

But outside of the bad coffee, is the advertising and public relations efforts that stick with me. I first took notice when I read a CNN.com article addressing Starbucks massive layoffs that happened this summer. DD pulled an entire paragraph in that story. The ridiculously discounted promotions caught my eye and when they were topped off with extensive advertising, DD became hard to ignore.

Just today I read an article by BusinessWeek proclaiming DD's newest campaign "Dunkin' beat Starbucks." Now we can all visit the extraordinarly unique URL DunkinBeatStarbucks.com to find out how.

All in all, a fantastic integrated campaign. But a lesson I've already learned in my limited ad years, DD, no amount of ad dollars will make your product taste good. Your ad dollars can put cups of coffee in customers' hands, but it's your job once they put it in their mouths.