The Dunkin’ Donuts of the future has arrived in Cleveland. Company officials announced the opening of the company’s second prototype store, one with a greatly expanded menu and a more casual environment.
?¢‚Ǩ?ìThis is the Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ of the future,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù said Randy Brashier, Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s vice president of new concept development, as a few dozen employees and company trainers buzzed about on Wednesday morning testing equipment and procedures. The store will employ 60 workers.
While the breakfast menu also is getting some new additions such as breakfast pizza and biscuit-wrapped sausage links, the big changes come when the menu board flips to its afternoon offerings. That?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s where you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll find bite-size pastries with those fillings that don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t seem to belong anywhere near a donut.
But Stan Frankenthaler, Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s executive chef, said the new items began first and foremost as an extension of Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s strengths. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìIf we surround these fillings with a really great dough ?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ that really speaks to a quality baking tradition,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Mr. Frankenthaler said. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìWhat went inside them came second.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù
The 1,900-square-foot store?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s architecture also is a departure from Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s traditionally utilitarian layouts. The open floor plan offers a view of the kitchen and ovens, evoking what Dunkin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ director of concept development Jimmy Fitzgerald calls a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìbig industrial bakery feel.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù And the eating area is designed to feel more like a casual coffee place than a fast-food restaurant.
The bottom line appears to be that Dunkin’ Donuts expansion plans for the US will take it in head-to-head competition with rivals such as McDonalds and Starbucks.
Source: Crain’s Cleveland Business
Just came from the new DD- it’s crazy nice & right around the corner from my house. Didn’t get anything fancy this time, just donuts, but I’ll be going back.
I dont know if you saw Laura Ries (marketing guru from Ries & Ries) panned the new efforts of Dnunkin’ Donuts, saying it was bound to fail vs Starbucks unless they focus on Starbucks’ biggest problem, slow service:
“All the major coffee competitors have used the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìsame but cheaper strategy?¢‚Ǩ¬ù which never works against the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìreal thing…And unless they nail speed, they will never beat Starbucks.”
http://ries.typepad.com/ries_blog/
So do you think this is valid?
My personal take (and I like Dunkin’ Donuts coffee) is that I wonder if a more disruptive approach would work. ie rather than trying to expand with more Dunkin’ Donuts and a new campaign, whether the company would be better off creating an entirely new concept, independent of the current business, to capture new customers in a new market.
In tech land, this disruptive innovation approach is very common. Think of BlackBerry and i-Pod, which were both new ideas for a new product that was way off mainstream. In fact, incompatible with the mainstream. Now, they are both big, profitable units in the mainstream.
You will notice that McDonald’s did something like this with its Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants: new idea, new management, independent product offering etc.
Anyway, I wrote up a more detailed analysis on this idea (as it applies to a different coffee and donut chain) at www.OnDisruption.com
The specific posting is:
http://ondisruption.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/03/donuts_and_blac.html
I welcome your feedback. Do you think any of this applies or am I crazy?