No Turn On Red

I am a loyal Dunkin Donuts drinker. I’ll usually stop in to one of the (many) local locations twice in a day. I like my coffee with extra cream and extra sugar. I don’t care if coffee snobs look down on this, I love my Dunkin Donuts.

Last week, Dunkin Donuts announced that they were launching a new website, MyIcedCoffee.com, today. Partnering with MapQuest, the site has a driving direction application that will let you know where the nearest Dunkin Donuts are along your trip. More coverage is available from the Boston Globe.

Judging by the few addresses I put into the application, they seem to be rather liberal with the locations that they are coming up with. From Point A to Point B, I know of 3 Dunkin Donuts that I pass but the application provided me with the addresses of 2 Dunkin Donuts that would require me to turn off my route. Technically speaking, I think that this website is bloated and too flash intensive. It’s well designed but it takes a few seconds to learn how to navigate. The driving direction portion of the site isn’t intuitive to get to. But, they’re giving away $10,000 and I’m sure people will look around.

The underlying branding message is there, though, and that’s important. Dunkin Donuts needs to keep reinforcing the notion that they are the drink that you will grab every day. Coffee while running errands, Coolatas at the beach, Smoothies at the kids baseball game. Being able to find out where Dunkin Donuts is while you travel reinforces this notion. Just because you aren’t home, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the coffee you like.

In my travels across the country, Dunkin Donuts is something I have looked for. I’ve started my days with my favorite coffee whenever I can. I was suprised to find a Dunkin Donuts during my recent vacation to Aruba. This website, bloated as it may be, is something I will look at when I am planning my upcoming Summer getaways.

When walking into Dunkin Donuts today, I saw that they’ve also unveiled their new marketing campaign with Rachael Ray. She was unveiled as the spokesperson in March, but the extent of her marketing involvement seems to have been slim until this point. Now, her photo is now slathered all throughout the store. There has been a commercial playing with her on television, but I wonder if now there will be more to come.

My worry is that Dunkin Donuts is going to get away from the branding message that works for them. Coffee your way, I think is what they say. They have to keep that idea strong in people’s mind. Rachael Ray will increase their visibility, but they can’t rest on that. I don’t want to see Dunkin Donuts settle for a campaign that basically says, “Rachael Ray likes Dunkin Donuts and so should you”. Consumers are smarter than that.

In addition to the new marketing, they’ve unveiled some new drinks and new donuts.

To the left, my friends, is the new Sobe Energy Coolata from Dunkin’ Donuts. Don’t be turned off by the neon greenness, it is actually refreshing. The Sobe Energy Coolata is one of the new drinks they’ve unveiled. It has a cherry citrus flavor and I am enjoying that. Their Smoothie was my go-to drink of the summer of 2006, Coolata could be my go-to drink for this Summer.

That is, until the nutrition information is posted for this drink and I find out exactly how much sugar I am consuming.

Key Lime and Lemon donuts are now featured to compliment the Berry Berry donut the chain started featuring a few weeks back. I was asked, “Would you like to try one of our new donuts?” when I ordered my coffee today.

Dunkin Donuts is trying to kick the summer off in high gear. I just hope that they continue a multi-channel, multi-faceted approach to their marketing campaign. They can’t rest on the superstar spokesperson, but she doesn’t hurt.

When everything comes together, this could be a very good season for Dunkin Donuts.

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Let me say this first, I love Atlantic City. I do enjoy playing cards and sitting in front of an Elvis slot machine. Although my last few trips haven’t been very successful, I have enjoyed watching the development of The Pier at Caesars unfold.

The Pier at Caesars is a $200 million redevelopment project of the former Ocean One Mall on the beach in Atlantic City. Boasting a mix of high and mid level retailers (Coach, Gucci and Louis Vuitton meet Ann Taylor, Quiksilver, Gymboree and Victoria’s Secret), this mall has been eagerly anticipated by tourists and residents alike.

The mall officially opened on Tuesday, although it is only the first phase. About a dozen of the ninety stores are open, with none of the resturaunts open yet. Developers say that more stores will open throughout the Summer with everything open by Labor Day. Work is still being done on some of the more decorative pieces, including fountains and billboards.

A good overview is the mall and the opening is available from the Associated Press: Once Tacky Resort City Gets More Class. The Press of Atlantic City has another, localized article about the opening which says that opening day was not all that impressive to some shoppers.

The Pier at Caesars is the second major retail project the town has. 2005 saw the opening of The Walk, aka the Atlantic City Outlets. This $76 million retail development project is beautiful - a great mix of stores that seems to be doing extremely well. From Gap to Polo Ralph Lauren to coffee at Starbucks, I have enjoyed walking this outdoor mall. Last year, the Baltimore Sun had an excellent article about the retail development of Atlantic City, with a focus on The Walk.

With all of this retail development in a city that is increasingly focusing on non-casino offerings, Atlantic City has become a great place to visit for those who are interested in visual merchandising and creative retail solutions. I have already enjoyed trips to The Walk and I am very interested in going to see The Pier at Caesars. I believe shoppers and tourists will respond well to the mix of stores available in Atlantic City.

This isn’t the end of large scale, non-casino development in Atlantic City. I can’t wait to see what the next few years bring.

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The second half of last week was crazy busy for me. Let me catch up on a few of the stories I missed last week:

Fendi sues Wal-Mart over sales of fake handbags:

Italian fashion group Fendi S.R.L. sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in U.S. federal court on Friday, accusing the world’s largest retailer of selling counterfeit handbags and passing them off as genuine at its Sam’s Club warehouse stores.

Sam’s Club stores in California, New York, Florida and other states sold knock off handbags, wallets and key chains that were identified as “genuine” Fendi products, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The suit by Fendi said that Wal-Mart has never purchased its products and never asked Fendi if any of the items bearing its trademark were genuine.

Having never stepped foot into a Sam’s Club, I’m suprised to even imagine that they would carry any Fendi products. This suit will be interesting to watch to see where the blame, if any, lies within Wal-Mart. Is this the case of an over-zealous buyer making sure they’re meeting “always low prices” or is this the case of Fendi not happy that their goods somehow ended up in Sam’s Club?

Good coverage in the comments over at Wake Up Walmart

More about the changes at Federated as the September transition to the Macy’s brand approaches. Here’s the rundown: Macy’s is the brand that people response to the most nationally, even if people in this article are negative about the loss of their regional department stores. Expect less promotions and increased private-label and exclusive offerings, as well as stores tailored to the region that they are in, so that Federated can maintain some of the things that people loved about all of the chains that they’ve swallowed up. Very informative article, though.

And lastly, two food-related quickies about two different chains who are being compared to Starbucks:

First is Dunkin Donuts, who are obviously competiting in the same space as Starbucks (in the sense that they both sell coffee). Boston.com has an article outlining the future growth plans of this chain. The plan calls for 15,000 U.S. locations in 2020, up from 5,000 today, and this will be done through a variety of store layouts and prototype as well as increased product offerings to drive afternoon business.

Is this all being done in an effort to compete with Starbucks? Not so much, it seems. As a loyal dunkin Donuts coffee drinker, I think that as much as these two brands concentrate around the same product (coffee), there is not too much overlap in their philosophy and themes, so I can see both of them co-existing pretty well in the world we live in. Seriously, though, whoever thought that there will be a day that we will live in a world with tens of thousands of locations of the same two stores?

The other eatery being compared to Starbucks doesn’t deal with coffee, but instead deals with ice cream.

USA Today has an article outlining the future growth of Cold Stone Creamery and the ice cream business in general. Two quotes that sum up this article really well are the following:

Cold Stone doesn’t just sell sundaes and sorbet, it sells sizzle. “It’s like Starbucks for kids,” says George Carey, president of Just Kid, a consulting firm.

and

An industry that once sold ice cream now is selling an ice cream experience.

Tonight I went to Friendly’s to get a large Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup sundae. I’m not concerned with the experience, I just want good ice cream. But with that said, it will be very hard for me to resist the new Cold Stone Creamery that they are building three minutes from my house.

That’s all I got tonight.

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First in maybe a weekly column? Hopefully.

Some quick retail notes for this lazy Sunday:

I hear that the new Abrecrombie & Fitch Back To School Preview floorset is this week. The seasonal transition at A&F is very impressive and seamless. Sales will be strong but it will be tough for A&F to compete with themselves and the high comps they had with BTS 2005 (June, July & August had comps of 38%, 22% & 24% in 2005). Look for solid increases in the gross margin with decreases in markdowns and sales for this upcoming season. This will be another great season for A&F.

Two quickies from the Loss Prevention blog: Cop kills man in grocery store shoplifting and Kroger manager jumps on hood of shoplifter’s car. I have nothing to say about the unfortunate shooting, but I’m sure Kroger’s corporate management doesn’t look fondly on employees jumping on cars to apprehend shoplifters. There has to be more to the story than that.

Last week, the Chicago Sun-Times ran an article showing where some of the former Sears executives have gone: Life After Sears.

And finally, a story from Starbucks showing how a good idea from worker, combined with the support of co-workers, the corporate office and customers can lead to a very positive outcome: Starbucks worker brews plan to get java to GIs in Afghanistan. A Starbucks employee from Maine organized a campaign where her co-workers donated their weekly bag of coffee they recieve as a benefit and, with corporate approval, solicited donations from customers. The result? 106 pounds of coffee sent to troops in Afghanistan. [via Starbucks Gossip]

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Here is one thing I believe in: customer service is not one way street.

Customers, as well as businesses they deal with, have an obligation to better customer service. Customer service cannot go from bad to good if the company doesn�t know that they are providing bad customer service. On the same hand, customer service cannot continue to be good or great if the company doesn�t know that they are already providing that level of service. It is important for the customer to communicate with whoever they are able to in order to help build good customer service relationships.

I�d like to share with you five ways that you, as a customer, can improve customer service in the places that you shop. Although the scope of this post is geared towards retail, restaurants, and industries where customer interaction is one-on-one, the basic tenets that I will describe can be applied to almost all of our business relationships.

Most of these ways should seem simplistic and obvious, but that’s the point. Talking to friends and family, it doesn’t seem that a lot of people are doing these incredibly simple and easy things that they can be doing to help businesses improve customer service.

For a little back story as to why I wrote this, check out my other post: On poor customer service and me being a poor customer.

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