Dropping Donuts from Dunkin' Donuts is a slam dunkin'

According to the Nation's Restaurant News, Dunkin' Donuts is considering dropping the Donuts to become simply Dunkin', and is testing the new name in Pasadena, California. Forget the testing. This is a slam dunkin'.

Dunkin' Donuts is owned by Dunkin' Brands, and refers to itself in its advertising by its nickname Dunkin'. If you read the transcripts of the past year of quarterly earnings calls--an enjoyable pastime on a rainy summer evening, along with a bottle of Wild Turkey and some Sigur Rós--you will get an appreciation for the trickery behind the illusion of franchised banal. In the earnings calls donuts are rarely mentioned, and growth is measured in one-onehundreths of percentage points with weather being a 60-basis-point headwind in Q1. Consultants have told Dunkin' that it must become a beverage-led on-the-go brand with "the most craveable beverages with the right food pairings to go with them." In other words, Dunkin' wants to be the Per Se of quick-service, with the focus squarely on coffee.

I don't know how you feel about Dunkin' Donuts. I have only a fleeting relationship with the brand, having purchased their K-Cups at Publix. But the people featured in the earnings calls are seeped in the brand and its culture. It's the reason why Dunkin' CEO Nigel Travis can say that he is looking at technological advancements to reduce the number of employees, and in the very next sentence say he wants to drive a people-first culture in an industry with 150% turnover. (Nigel Travis, who made over $500 per hour in 2016, is famous for saying that "a $15 minimum-wage is outrageous" then taking his multi-million dollar winnings as Dunkin' CEO to buy a soccer team.) An increase in the minimum wage is a threat to the company's earnings guidance and the anxiety and uncertainty around minimum wage legislation hangs in the air of the Dunkin' conference calls like an ominous cloud of profit-sucking Bernie Sanders spores.

The company's number one focus, that it underscores for analysts by calling it a maniacal focus, is on driving coffee leadership as an on-the-go brand. It's more than a brand strategy: it's a thesis. Coffee has an 80% profit margin, and is at the core of what Dunkin' wants its brand to be. Donuts are just one of many coffee add-ons. Coffee is served as coffee, iced coffee, frozen coffee, espresso in many forms, and cold brew. In the earnings call, cold brew is referred to as one of the most important product introductions in the last decade and the grounds for building coffee credibility.

"Millennials love cold brew." ~ Nigel Travis

Millennials also love energy drinks which is why Dunkin has introduced Dunkin' Energy Punch that sounds like something boxing fans will see in Las Vegas when Mayweather meets MacGregor.

Dunkin' also wants to be a leader in digital technology. In Dunkin' parlance, it wants to "get guests into the digital ecosystem," to make it frictionless for people to "get their Dunkin' fix." When they talk with such naked ambition on the earnings call about winning a great "share of wallet" with their technological tricks, I must admit I get a little turned on.

"Millennials love technology" ~ Nigel Travis

Nowhere is it more obvious where Dunkin' is going with technology aimed at millennials than in this multi-million dollar ad shot in Chamonix France that got over 155 million views. Millennials love cool things like jumping off a 8000 foot cliff and flying through the air at 120mph. Executives love being associated with an ad recognized by Adweek as the Ad of the Day and Fast Company as the Ad of the Week.

All wingsuit jumper Ellen Brennan thinks about all the time, even in her dreams, is wingsuit jumping. It's her passion. It's what she lives for. Why she risked her life to grab a bag of somethin' Dunkin' on the world's fastest Dunkin' run makes absolutely no sense to me at all, but what Ellen did is no different than the people who are giving up their lives to Dunkin'.

We're trying to be the best Dunkin' we can be! ~ ejaculation from a Dunkin' earnings call

The inside Dunkin' joke is that nobody goes to Dunkin' Donuts to write a screenplay. Changing the name to Dunkin' is a reflection of its fleeting charm, but it's even more than that. Much more. Dunkin' wants to "move up the consumer experiential curve" to be "a place of positive transition in people's lives."

And you thought it was just a donut/coffee/whatever shop.

Dropping the Donut from Dunkin' is already well underway with a new image for restaurants to be rolled out in 2018. It will be rationalized as positioning a beverage-led to-go millennial-friendly brand, but isn't it really about making something cooler, something more meaningful, something a little more worth living for?