Starbucks vs. Dunkin' Donuts:

Born: Seattle

Size: 17,000 stores in 55 countries (11,000 in the US)

Starbucks sells an estimated 4 billion cups of coffee per year.

Mike Schneider

Source: http://www.celebritysentry.com/

A Social Media Free-For-All

Born: Quincy, MA

Size: 9,700 stores in 31 countries (6,700 in the US)

Dunkin' sells an estimated 1.5 billion cups of coffee per year.

What do Consumers Think? General Sentiment (pos.)

●Contents

● Gift cards popular; strong promotion● Coffee itself makes up 25%, with other

drinks making up an additional 10%, meaning that variety is something customers value

● Fix/treat (as in coffee fix makes up 11% and positive adjectives make up an additional 10%

● Free and drink (mostly referring to seasonal drinks) make up 17%, meaning that customers value special promotions

● Sample size much smaller (3,398, as opposed to 63,258)

● 50% Coffee refers primarily to like of the taste (combined with delicious and best coffee makes up 54%

● Customers value variety (offerings besides coffee make up 27%)

● Promotions create positive response (5% each for gift cards and coupons)

What do Consumers Think?

● Customers from both brands value drink variety, promotions taste preference is subjective, even if it is both the largest praise and complaint for both companies.

● Dunkin' Donuts has more complaints about quality while Starbucks has more complaints about price. Both have complaints about convenience.

source: slate.comsource: imnotsaying.blogspot.com

What do Consumers Think? General Sentiment (neg.)

● Convenience complaints (line, slow, mess up order, baristas, issues with gift card): 28%

● Principle issues with coffee/taste/drink: brand preference and quality (26%)

● Price (expensive/overrated/money): 20%. Largely belief that the brand is over-priced

● Whereas many felt that Starbucks was overpriced, most complaints just say that Dunkin' is “pricey”. Fewer complain of DD price vs Starbucks

● Convenience issues (too late, not have donut, mess up order, line): 21%

● Quality/preference issues (taste, doughnut, coffee, tea): 70%

What do the Brands do? Dunkin' Utilizes multiple Facebook apps and contests

● Fan of the Week:“Post your photo to our Wall and each week, we'll choose one fan's photo to be our profile pic.”

● The online DD Perks program helps support patronage and loyalty● Get Hired Like a Boss interactive video: takes facebook pictures and

advertises angus steak and egg● Free CBS Live access for the month of march

enter email―they get to keep it● Presence in the Social Sims game● Turbo shot game―to win a free DD turbo shot of espresso if a player

can get on the leaderboard● DD Madame Tussauds sweepstakes―discounts and chance to go to

NYC● Starbucks just has apps for the Starbucks card, “Starbucks around the

world” a Starbucks job search app

What do the Brands do? Facebook: Not only a large difference in the number of fan base but in the overall approaches

● Starbuck's has separate pages for local stores and for beverages, meaning lower level of centralization; conversations occurring in many places.

● Local store pages are not maintained as fully as that of the corporate page.

● Has no interactive tools to play and interact with the brand.

● Tone is friendly, but somewhat corporate and most posts have a clear purpose (e.g. holidays and promotions)

● Dunkin Donut's has only one, central brand page; conversations occurring in only one place; easy for both brand and customers to mingle and engage

● Dunkin Donut's statuses are humorous "Dunkin' Donuts Coffee is good. So are bananas, but this isn't their homepage"

Fig. Sbux has millions of fans but the overall quality in engaging customers is in question.

What do the Brands do? Facebook: Is Sbux not good at talking?

● Starbuck's page seems more like of a well-refined corporate page rather than a "fan page."— wall posts usually reflect holidays and corporate events.

● Despite millions of fan base, Sbux merely "pushing" messages rather than actively engaging the fans with the brand.

● Dunkin Donut's tirelessly comments back to customer activities and feedbacks, engaging more customers who're not actively involved.

● Not only "pushing" but "pulling messages" from the customers

What do the Brands do? Twitter: DD outnumbers Sbux in total number of tweets

● Both respond quickly and actively to customers’ tweets

● However, contrary to presumption, Dunkin Donut's tweets more frequently than Sbux in spite of substantially low number of followers.

● Contrary to Dunkin Donut's, Starbuck's total number of tweets out of its total followers is very low.

● Both brands create far more content than they share, with Sbux sharing just slightly more.

● Interestingly, Klout says that both brands are somewhat broad in topic of influence. Dunkin' is slightly more “Consistent” in their posts.

● Starbucks has been on Twitter since November of 2006; Dunkin' since September of 2008

What do the Brands do? Twitter: Both brands act differ in tone and response to complaints

● Dunkin Donut's is more colloquial in tone, which shows through esp on twitter—"eat breakfast like a boss", "Tweeting to you from the Dunkin Donut's Mothership."

● Asks angry customers for their contact number so that Dunkin Donut's can act quickly

● As on Facebook, Dunkin Donut's is more casual and candid in dealing with customers and their complaints

● Starbuck's more monotone; repeating generic response to different customers' tweets

● Usually asks angry customers to call to customer service

● As on Facebook, Starbuck's generates more refined and corporate-like content and response.

● On Twitter, Starbucks has a greater absolute and a greater relative increase over Dunkin'.

● Remember that Starbucks also dutifully reaches out to twitter followers, albeit not as actively or charismatically as Dunkin'.

● On Facebook, Starbucks has a greater absolute increase over Dunkin', but Dunkin' only has a slightly higher relative increase, interesting due to Dunkin's great efforts on Facebook.

● Dunkin's efforts may be better at engaging existing fans in an effort to make them brand ambassadors, as opposed to simply accumulating likes.

What do the Brands do? Regardless of Dunkin's Effort, Starbucks Gains more Fans and Followers

What do the Brands do? YouTube: Different tones reflected

● Starbucks: utilizes animations and lounge music (occasionally hip indie music); a few videos are about specific products, the majority are about the brand--history, quality, friendliness, class; almost all clearly scripted/acted

● Dunkin Donuts: Many silly videos with "regular people", such as "What are you drinkin'? Penguin Suit Guy wants to know"; Rock music; lots of giveaways that showcase the reactions of regular people

● While not directly tied to social media, insights show top-of-mind awareness● Main impacts on search for both stores were announcements to open new stores (or the closing of

stores) --for example, Starbuck's recent spike is in response to an announcement to open stores in India

● Searches for Dunkin Donut's occur almost exclusively in the United States with scattered searches in various countries across the globe--surprising when remembering that one of the positive terms on Netbase for Dunkin Donut's was "immensely popular around the world"

● Starbuck's beats Dunkin Donut's in search volume for every country and has strong awareness/search volume in many countries, especially the Americas, Western Europe, Australia and South-East Asia

What do the Brands do? Owned Media

What do the Brands do? Dunkindonuts.com

● social media integration prominent on DD homepage, which even has a live twitter feed and links to twitter and facebook competitions.

● Blog kept by social media manager and reflects events of mass appeal―usually holidays and sporting events; summarizing responses to prompts on social media

● Also, “create your own donut” game—previously contest that ended in 2010 for 60th anniversary

● DD live cam in Times Square via earthcam.com

● Overall, traffic to the site has decreased over the past month and over the past year by 15%.

● Dunkin' Donuts traffic spiked in June during its National Donut Day promotion (free donuts)

Quantitative Analysis:

Qualitative Analysis:

What do the Brands do? Starbucks.com

● Blog topics include environmental initiatives; highlighting of products; special events, often related to music and musical icons (e.g. Sir Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen); posts about music and culture often make no direct reference to Starbucks; posts authored by a variety of managers

● Very limited comments--at most one or two per post● The rest of the site is pretty much static and meant to bring information rather than engagement ● Social media integration on starbucks page burried under “everylove story” campaign● http://www.starbucks.com/everylove, which leverages fb, twitter, instagram and their own mobile apps to share

stories about "relationships worth celebrating"● Intense social media integration is more burried than on DD page,● Mobile apps; Dunkin' has one, but they don't push it as much

● Traffic is down for the month but up over the year by 15%

● Traffic jumped in November and December, likely due to popular seasonal drinks.

Quantitative Analysis:

Qualitative Analysis:

What do the Brands do? My Starbucks Idea

How My Starbucks Idea Works:

● Customers create their own ideas for products, experience, and involvement at their local stores

● Great ideas voted and chosen by fellow customers ○ In order to give incentives, Starbuck's adds

features of gamification: leaderboard where high scorers can

● Has its own twitter account with 31,000 followers who tweet and share ideas

Ideas that Came from My Starbucks Idea:

● Buy coffee beans and get a free cup of coffee● Starbuck's VIP Card

Why This Matters:

● This begets another efficient groundswell for the brand where focused and loyal customers can build a strong relationship with the brand, not the corporation

● Customer-defined personalization: customers choose what they want and the brand satisfies them

● Higher level of brand experience: not only do customers buy but they also create the brand identity

What do We Think?

● Difference in scale, although Dunkin' may be doing a better job of interacting with a loyal base of customers

● Dunkin' may be trying harder, but Starbucks is still winning in numbers● 2 very different brand messages and tones reflected through both owned and

social media: Dunkin' fun, Starbucks classy.● Much of it boils down to a matter of taste preference. ● image ingrained into all social media and promotions--Starbucks would never

have a "Like a Boss" campaign and it would seem out of character for Dunkin' to brag about its fine coffee roasts.

● Both respond to praise/complaints/ideas differently: Dunkin' primarily through Facebook and Twitter, Starbucks through Twitter but also largely through MyStarbucksIdea

● Both brands are effective in creating buzz around promotions● Starbucks focuses more on general engagement--most media and

applications reflect the theme of "What does Starbucks mean to you?, whereas Dunkin' Donuts more effectively uses gamification with its interactive apps and contests.