Dunkin' Donuts, Yahoo Team Up To Offer News, Sports

Dunkin' Donuts makes fresh coffee and tasty treats daily. Now it plans to serve up morning news and sports, too. The Canton, Mass.-based retailer has signed a deal with the Internet search giant Yahoo to co-brand a social network site and video programming with content from many of the top networks and agencies.

The deal makes Dunkin' Donuts the exclusive advertiser on the co-branded online video player airing news clips from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, the Associated Press and Reuters. A module on Yahoo News will promote morning programming. Yahoo also will provide additional co-branded media across its online properties to drive viewers to the sites.

Consumers gained access to sports highlights on Yahoo Sports Minute, a video summary of the biggest daily stories, in late February. A Dunkin'-branded video news round-up will launch April 9, followed by the social network community Dunkin' Lounge within Yahoo Groups in May, where consumers can share stories and ideas.

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The Yahoo Sports Minute, originally scheduled to run between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. EDT, has been extended an hour because the show has seen spikes in clicks--registering more than 250,000 video streams daily, the company says. About 20 million unique visitors frequent the sports site monthly, and 40 million go to news, says Al Warms, GM/VP of Yahoo News, who adds that the two companies will leverage Yahoo's online network to market the shows and the social network site he affectionately calls the "Dunkin' Lovers Lounge."

Yahoo designed the video sites for the busy on-the-go consumer who stops at Dunkin' Donuts for morning coffee and a breakfast sandwich. They get to work, turn on the computer, and watch a few highlights of news and sports before starting their day, according to David Tryder, manager of interactive and relationship marketing at Dunkin' Donuts. "We wanted to build a true branded experience with lots of content that Dunkin' can own," he says. "You can't get that through Google. They have video through YouTube, but it's not the kind of experience we wanted to offer."

Tryder says Dunkin' Donuts has begun to promote the experience, which ties morning coffee with news highlights, through the company's perks e-mail program delivered to in-boxes biweekly. "Several hundred thousand" consumers received information on the video and social network sites in the company's newsletter on March 5. There are no in-store promotions planned, but both companies have run online advertisements on Yahoo's sites.

The video and social network sites are not being made available on mobile phones yet. "We haven't had serious dialog, just talked about the possibility, but it is an interesting opportunity," Tryder says. When asked about making mobile coupons available to add to the campaign, he says Dunkin' Donuts has tested "some mobile campaigns to figure out what that means for Dunkin' and franchise owners."

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