At first blush, companies with established brands and products might seem to have a leg up in their marketing efforts. Consumers can easily identify brands like McDonald’s, American Airlines and Dunkin’ Brands, and often have established relationships with them.
But at the same time, these companies face uphill challenges: They operate at such scale that they aren’t always adept at one-to-one marketing, in which companies create more personalized customer experiences with customers. For Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Brands, scale and traditional tactics were getting in the way of creating intimate customer experiences with coffee drinkers.
“Dunkin’ has been very strong in traditional mass-market broadcast efforts like on TV and radio for the past decade,” said John Schue, associate manager of digital marketing and innovation at Dunkin’ Brands. “But now we’re being challenged in moving to a more personalized one-to-one guest-centered approach as we think about how to engage today’s consumer. We had to change our approach.”
