Dunkin' Donuts "#KEEPON Anthem" (2016) :30 (USA)

Every day is a gift. A new day. To do something. Amazing. Keep on dreaming. Working. Winning. Losing. Playing. Learning. Loving. Keep on. Being You. #KeepOn

*Eye roll*

♫ IT'S A BEAUTIFUL LIFE ♫

Yeah but what does life have to do with donuts?

♫ AND NIGHTS OUT IN THE RAIN I LOVE IT JUST THE SAME ♫

Big type spewing cliche affirmations and random images. Why is there a kid with a bionic arm?

♫ IT'S A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. SO OPEN UP YOUR MIND WHILE WE STILL HAVE SOME TIME ♫

WTF. While we still have some time? We'd have more time if we didn't eat donuts, I'll tell you that much. And then we go from a tech start up working late nights to a woman in the army looking at a laptop with a cup of coffee.

♫ IT'S A BEAUTIFUL LIFE ♫

And after some fitful product shots of drinks and kids making donut eyes, we end on an all female garage band. This is the new Dunkin Donuts. Spewing greeting card philosophy. This ad could be for breakfast cereal. Or McDonald's. Or 7-11. Or a local artisanal donut shop that always has a line around the block. This ad could be for any competitor. But worse this ad could be for an-y-thing. Insurance. Heart medication. A car. You name it. By taking out any feature or benefit to the product Dunkin' Donuts has made itself absolutely irrelevant. And what's worse, by assuming their demographic is literally everyone, it feels like they've don't really know who their audience is.

Dunkin' Donuts has always been a working class brand. Its most iconic and longest running campaign starred Fred The Baker. A working class employee whose catch phrase was "Time to make the donuts," which he always said cheerily in the morning. And then at the end of the evening, he'd stumble in weary and shaken saying "I made the donuts." For the past decade America has been running on Dunkin' Donuts. Who was America in this context? The working-class. Now this shift to "everyone," complete with anthem tries to appeal to everyone and comes out flavorless and focused-grouped to death, right down to the hashtag. #KeepOn? I'm good, thanks.

Client: Dunkin Donuts
Agency: Hill Holliday
Production Company: Greenpoint PicturesExecutive
Producer: Tatiana Rudzinski
Producer: Willa Goldfeder
Director: Evan Dennis

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