Dunkin' UAE

The Objective

Showcasing new products with unconventional and engaging content

Dunkin’ UAE first opened its doors in 1997. Today, 25 years later they operate 72 stores and 250 express towers across the country. Coffee and donuts, right? That’s Dunkin’. Wrong, they’re so much more. 

They spread positivity throughout the day; sweetening lives, making moments happier and celebrations bigger. They help their customers share moments and create connections by bringing them together over a cup of coffee, a box of donuts, or even a tasty breakfast.

Familiar with TikTok, they use their organic presence to post fun light-hearted content developed by their in-house creative team. Coffee and occasions that’s their focus. The coffee focus comes from the relaunch of their coffee platform with premium coffee beans and expertly trained baristas and top-notch machinery.

The focus on occasions comes about as they create custom-made donuts, packaging, cards, etc. for almost every major occasion in the UAE. This content is usually linked to big and notable occasions like Mother’s Day, the festive season, and Halloween.

With the launch of their new iced coffee range, they wanted to give their content an extra shot. They wanted a campaign to showcase the making of popular drinks from their new iced coffee range. Furthermore, they wanted to do this in an unconventional, fun way while introducing their baristas to their followers.

The Solution

Launching new products and creating awareness with Spark Ads

The key objective and KPI of the campaign was increasing community interaction and reach. The TikTok campaign was an extension of a full-fledged iced coffee campaign including in-store marketing material, radio ads, In-mall media, and more running for three months over the summer.

For the TikTok element, they’d be running a series of videos using TikTok’s Spark Ads, leveraging organic content and targeting a wide audience across the region focusing on Dubai (50%), Abu Dhabi (30%) & Sharjah (20%).

Usually, an in-house team handles the creative work and content development, but for this campaign, their Cosmopolitan Iced Coffee Videos were going to be a step change and they needed a caffeine hit. 

Conceptualized internally along with with Cosmopolitan Middle East team, the videos were produced in Cosmopolitan's studios using renown social media influencers as video hosts.

When it comes to recipes and quality facts, the team understood these tend to have a more traditional, serious style of execution. They wanted to flip this and showcase not only their coffee credentials but the baristas behind their amazing cup of Dunkin’ coffee in an unconventional and fun way. 

Looking to attract the attention of their main Gen Z audience they went for a more natural and native style of content. Content that was fun, lively and that sounded a little less scripted than regular videos. The end creative featured much more in the way of the host’s natural reactions hosts, bloopers, and fun music.

For Dunkin’, It was also important to stand out from other coffee players in the region and for the campaign to match their brand personality. These even extended to props and sets used in the ads using bright fresh colours that matched the colours of the iced coffee campaign.

The Results

Entertaining Spark Ads perk up campaign performance

A stunning success the campaign picked up 2,135,984 impressions and perked up follower numbers by 210% (from 10K to 30K in under a month). Bigger than numbers though it helped create awareness around their coffee and the expertise of their baristas while highlighting key facts around and about their coffee. This in turn increased brand awareness and helped them increase their coffee credibility which in turn increased sales.

Dunkin’s key campaign takeaway and insight though was realising through the campaign that using an unconventional creative approach (and script) combined with striking art direction and setup using renowned influencers, generates outstanding results!