Something’s missing from a new TV campaign that introduces Dunkin’ Donuts’ flat-bread sandwiches and personal pizzas.
There’s not a celebrity in sight. Rachael Ray is not zipping in and out of a Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant. Model Naomi Campbell is not heaving her shoe through a window. The guitar of Kiss band member Ace Frehley does not shoot sparks.
Those are scenes from previous TV spots for the chain, which plans to use more celebrities in future ads.
Yes, the new campaign is celebrity-free, but it does have one thing going for it: superb creative.
It is so well-executed that if I used a rating system as other ad scribblers do, I’d give it all the stars, A-pluses or thumbs-up I had. It’s that good.
Two of the four spots in the campaign are that good, anyway. Hill Holliday of Boston is the agency.
The two spots I enjoyed most feature construction workers and a mother picking up her kids from school.
The workers are building a house: hammering, sawing, pounding things, dropping two-by-fours on the ground, sanding walls. The sounds create a rhythm that is pleasant to the ears.
Between the sawing and hammering, the camera cuts to construction workers eating flat-bread sandwiches and personal pizzas.
“Don’t miss a beat all afternoon,” the voice-over says.
In the second spot, a mother stops her SUV in front of a school to pick up her son and daughter. She’s munching a flat-bread sandwich. Shots of the kids and two cars stopped behind the SUV are intercut with shots and sounds of seat belts being unzipped, door locks flipping up, car doors opening, the kids’ gym shoes squeaking as they get into the SUV, the daughter’s gum popping, and the son’s feet kicking the back of the driver’s seat.
The drivers behind her patiently munch sandwiches and enjoy a cool Dunkin’ Donuts beverage as they wait for her to pull out.
The sounds in the commercial make a rhythmic beat, just as in the first one.
The other two spots show a mailroom worker licking an envelope and then suddenly gobbling it up, and a student sitting in a library who eats his pencil. The voice-over in both says, “Clearly, you can use some real food in the afternoon.”
These spots target a younger audience than the first two. Perhaps younger consumers actually do get so hungry that they’ll devour whatever’s in their hands.
There are no rhythmic sounds in these two, however. They don’t have the energy of the others and aren’t as entertaining. Watching those guys eat an envelope and a pencil may propel some viewers into a laughing fit, but it didn’t do that to me.
The spots are intended to say that when someone craves an afternoon snack, a flat-bread sandwich or a personal pizza is a delicious alternative to an envelope and a pencil.
My reaction as I viewed them was entirely different: If you’re so desperately hungry that you’d eat a pencil or an envelope, a flat-bread sandwich or personal pizza couldn’t be any worse.
The spots with the construction workers and the mother deliver a strong product pitch without seeming to do so. The flat-bread sandwich and personal pizza look like a lot of fun to eat, and who doesn’t like fun?
These two are as well-executed as the chain’s “Fritalian” spot last year, which poked fun at Star-bucks for selling coffee drinks with foreign names.
No celebrities appeared in that spot, either, proving that “star power” is not as important as a well-written script and good editing to make a commercial come alive.