Native New Englanders can tend to be a bit provincial, a bit suspicious of outsiders. Since Starbucks is from the West Coast, and since, as Simon asserts, “people will always use consumption to differentiate themselves from others,” it should surprise no one where our loyalties lie.
It’s to Dunkin’s credit that that loyalty is reciprocated. Says Dunkin’ Donuts’s senior vice-president of communications Margie Myers, “We have a powerful heritage here, and that will always be the case.”
A while back, for example, Dunkin’ Brands [the corporate headquarters for Dunkin’ Donuts, Togo’s, and Baskin Robbins] was thinking of moving out of its Randolph headquarters. “People were saying, ‘why don’t you move somewhere else in the country where it’s not as expensive?’ ” Myers says. “But our CEO, Jon Luther, just felt that our heritage and the connection we have to our customers in this part of the country was too important to who we are as a brand. It’s our home. It’s a powerful part of our own heritage, and how we think of ourselves.”
When Myers says that “the level of passion people feel for Dunkin’ Donuts here seems comparable to the level of passion they feel for the Red Sox,” she’s not speaking hyperbolically. Simon remembers speaking to a guy who told him, “I’m as loyal to Dunkin’ Donuts as I am to the Patriots.”
Class warfare
If words like those bespeak a paunchy guy in a Richard Seymour jersey pulling his pickup into a Dunkies in Waltham or Milford to get his lahge regulah, breakfast sandwich, and Herald, well, that image is hardly culled from the realm of fantasy. Dunkin’ Donuts has always courted a working-class image, whether or not it’s always been explicit. Indeed, the namesake act of dunking a donut has proletarian roots: a once ill-mannered habit, born of the necessity of eating stale pastry.
“A couple years ago, we did a seminal piece of research, where we looked into the psychographics of who our customers are,” says Myers. “They tend to be very hard-working people, down-to-earth people, with a strong sense of self. So it’s not really about the job, it’s about who you are as a person. You can look into any of our parking lots and see [everything from] BMWs to trucks.”
An entirely unscientific sampling of the customers at the Quincy Dunkin’ the other morning — a crumpled old lady, a greasy mechanic, an Army vet, a maintenance engineer, a family of Haitian immigrants, a guy who looked a lot like an undercover cop — would seem to reinforce its reputation as a chain with a pretty plainspoken clientele. But that’s not all who go there.
“I talked to a pretty wealthy lawyer in Cambridge, and he won’t go to Starbucks,” says Simon. “For him, it’s an expression of his relationship to New England, but also to working people. Like he’s more populist through that.”
Then again, Simon says, “Lots of working people go to Starbucks. It’s pretty clear that Starbucks is increasingly becoming more middle-market, but they go in a different way. They go for aspiration. ‘By drinking this am I acting middle class?’ My dental hygienist gets Dunkin’ Donuts every day. That’s her coffee. But on Friday, when she gets paid, she goes to Starbucks to treat herself.”
Fair or not, these are the stereotypes. Starbucks is fancy, indulgent, haute-bourgeois. Dunkin’ is simple, unpretentious, to the point. One encourages lounging and relaxation, one encourages getting in, getting out, and getting on with your day. Look deeper, and it’s fascinating how these conventions play out.
“Starbucks regulars hate the idea that their individuality is somehow compromised in Dunkin’ Donuts,” says Simon. “They don’t have many choices, they can’t put their own milk and sugar in. Part of what they’re buying [at Starbucks] is this sense of individuality.”
On the other hand, Dunkin’ sometimes seems to keep certain, perhaps more culturally loaded aspects of itself under wraps — or at least keep them understated. “All of Dunkin’ Donuts espresso drinks are fair-trade coffee,” Simon points out. “But all they do is put a little circle [fair trade symbol] on the door.” It’s as if they want to do the right thing, he says, but also know that “their customers don’t like all that value-added shit.”
In the end, after all, “this is about perception. McDonalds is trying to compete against Starbucks — going wireless, putting fireplaces in — but Dunkin’ is realizing they can position themselves differently,” says Simon. He asked one Dunkin’ higher-up if there were plans in place to add Wi-Fi. “No, he said, because the last thing he wants is guys in trucks, getting their coffee, to walk in and have no place to sit because there’s a bunch of people in ties banging away on their laptops.”
It’s remarkable how doggedly loyal people can be to their brand. Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that, for market research, Dunkin’ Donuts had paid dozens of faithful customers in Phoenix, Chicago, and Charlotte $100 a week to get coffee at Starbucks, and paid Starbucks fans to do the opposite. Findings? Customers were “so polarized that company researchers dubbed them ‘tribes’ — each of which loathed the very things that made the other tribe loyal to their coffee shop. Dunkin’ fans viewed Starbucks as pretentious and trendy, while Starbucks loyalists saw Dunkin’ as austere and unoriginal.”