• by Karl Greenberg , April 14, 2008

Dunkin' Donuts has signed Fenway Sports Group (FSG), a Boston-based sports and entertainment marketing firm, as its sports marketing agency of record.

The greater Boston-based Dunkin' Donuts has had a number of ongoing marketing ventures with New England sports properties over the years. And the company's franchise footprint is mostly New England, followed in franchise density by Florida and parts of the upper Midwest.

The company has focused much of its sports marketing deals around the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, Revolution and Breakers. In 2005, Dunkin' Donuts ran a $1 million ad push by Boston shop Hill Holliday featuring then-Sox GM Theo Epstein and player Johnny Damon.

The BoSox are both a client and sibling of FSG; both are units of New England Sports Ventures, which also owns Fenway Park, and 80% of New England Sports Network. Other FSG clients include Boston College and Major League Baseball's MLB.com. Neither FSG nor Dunkin' Donuts were available by press time to comment on FSG's role as both agency of Dunkin' Donuts and sibling and agency of the Boston Red Sox and MLB.com.

FSG's Web site says "The FSG Group Sales and Representation team brings diverse capabilities and decades of experience to sports sponsorship sales and promotions. We apply this successfully to FSG-owned and -represented properties as well as the clients we sell them to." But FSG says its focus will be on developing national programs and on offering tactical support for national sports marketing calendar programs.

The 58-year-old Dunkin' Donuts has also had a long-term promotional partnership with the New England Patriots and has run promotions featuring Patriots QB Tom Brady.

This year, Dunkin' Donuts signed a two-race "test" sponsorship of National Hot Rod Association team David Powers Motorsports. The company also signed with the association for a presence at NHRA events in Gainesville, Fla., and Atlanta.

Dunkin' Brands is in the middle of a national expansion plan to have 15,000 Dunkin' Donuts outlets by 2016, with hip-interior stores and a focus on coffee to edge into Starbucks' market. The company, which plans to extend reach to all states east of the Mississippi, and to California and the Northwest, aims to unseat Starbucks coffee-franchise king. The company even did "tribe research," sending its customers to Starbucks to get their comparative insights, and has run humorous ads making fun of Starbucks as Euro-pretentious to tout Dunkin' as a more regular-Joe coffee brand.

In 2006, Pernod Ricard SA sold Dunkin' Brands, which also owns Baskin Robbins and Togo (later spun off), to Boston private equity firms Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners and Washington, D.C.-based Carlyle Group for $2.4 billion.

In January, Will Kussell, 49, was named president/chief brand officer for Dunkin' Donuts Worldwide; he had been Dunkin' Brands COO. Last year, the company's system-wide sales were $5.3 billion.