• by Karl Greenberg , October 20, 2010

  Beantown-based Dunkin' Donuts, which has been a Boston Celtics sponsor for 15 years, has renewed for another three. The extension, through the 2012-13 season, makes Dunkin' Donuts "official team sponsor," giving the company rights to use Boston Celtics team marks and logos for marketing and advertising campaigns.

Dunkin' Donuts has also signed a deal to make Celtics All-Star guard Ray Allen spokesperson and the face behind a New England-market, season-long iced coffee marketing campaign, "Caught Cold." Allen will appear in television and radio commercials and participate in promotional appearances.

The effort involves consumer rewards for New Englanders who are "caught" drinking Dunkin' Donuts Iced Coffee. Every Thursday throughout the 2010-11 NBA season, the Celtics street team will travel around the region looking for people drinking Dunkin' Donuts Iced Coffee, and will reward them with two tickets to an upcoming Celtics home game at the TD Garden.

Allen will tip off the "Caught Cold" campaign by joining the Celtics street team on its inaugural quest to find and reward drinkers with a pair of tickets to the highly anticipated Boston Celtics home opener vs. Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and the Miami Heat.

Dunkin' Donuts "KidZone," a program the company has had since 2001, will continue through the period of the new partnership. The KidZone is a seating section at the TD Garden for kids from charitable organizations.

The company has other programs in the region around baseball. And although the company doesn't have its logo on a race car, it did have NASCAR driver Greg Biffle serving drinks and handing out donuts at a New Hampshire DD store. He was there to promote the Sprint Cup's Sylvania 300 race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Biffle races for Rousch Fenway, which happens to be sibling of Fenway Sports Group, the sports marketing agency that counts both Rousch Fenway and Dunkin' Donuts as clients. Fenway Sports Group also brokered DD's deal with the Celtics.

This summer the company also signed with the BoSox around a Sox- themed frozen slush drink, which was sold at DD shops in the region. The company touted "The Wally the Green Monster Coolatta" (Wally is the Red Sox mascot) with visits by the mascot to restaurants in Mass. and NH and giveaways of game tickets.

In the past, the company has done merchandising and promotional deals around NFL teams in the Northeast with things like cups and coffee boxes with New York Giants and Jets logos.