Everyone loves doughnuts. They’re a staple at nearly every office across corporate America. Dunkin’ Donuts knows this, and has created a free iPhone application in order to spur some office-related doughnut runs. You know how it goes. You bring in a box of doughnuts for early morning meetings, post-lunch meetings, late afternoon meetings. Or you get a hankering for one of those apple-filled, crumble-topped rounds of fried goodness. So you grab your wallet and selflessly ask your officemates if they’d like anything from Dunkin’ as well.
As this act of kindness (or unpaid internship dutifulness) that Dunkin’ is counting on. From your iPhone you can initiate a group order, and have requests sent via Dunkin’ to your officemates. Everyone can put in their order, and the lucky gopher now has a complete list and exact total for the group order.
What’s interesting about this particular app and the way in which it creates an interactive format for soliciting group orders is that it essentially turns a simple doughnut run into an event. With alerts sent out to officemates regarding an upcoming Dunkin’ run, the doughnuts company is more than encouraging repeat behavior and taking branding to a new and practical level. Simplify the lives of your paying customers and you’re more likely to gain positive brand recognition.
As far as retail goes, I have a tendency to like this approach. The app is mobile, free, and provides a valuable service to customers. I wouldn’t mind seeing other retailers follow suite, though the type of retail this mobile app would work for is rather limited. And while there is a website that provides the same service, having it available on mobile phones makes it easier for all parties involved.
On the market research side of things, I’m sure Dunkin’ will be able to garner a good amount of information from those that use this application. Location-based data and customer history are just two areas of research that could be greatly benefited from this application alone. Of course, this data can then be parsed and given back to the customers in the form of recommendations, some of which could even be used outside of the Dunkin’ Run application. Other personal assistant services such as PageOnce, or food-related applications on the iPhone or Facebook could benefit from such purchase-based recommendations in the long run, especially when combined with recommendations from other retailers.