Dunkin’ Donuts aims to reward loyal brand fans with the integration of their new DD Perks Reward loyalty program that launched on Nov. 4 in four markets.  The program is set to launch national early 2014.  We will see the program first in Dallas, Orlando, Portland and Wilkes Barre-Scanton markets.

Dunkin’s goal with the mobile-friendly program is to move from a more traditional loyalty program with mailed rewards and coupons to a primarily digital rewards delivery and redemption model.  The program will incorporate the Dunkin’ app that launched in 2012 in which users can instantly pay for items via their mobile device as well as redeem rewards and collect reward points.

The loyalty program is relatively simple; with every dollar users spend, they will earn five points.  Accumulate 200 points and you’ve earned yourself a free medium beverage.  Seems simple enough, right.

Now here’s the real perk.  Dunkin’ plans to use this program to learn more about Brand fans gathering valuable information on specific behaviors in order to offer promotions that will interest specific customers.

While this may not seem like a significant opportunity for Dunkin’ to win with millennials, the chance to leverage technology to create one-to-one marketing couldn’t be stronger.  We know that with millennials, “useful” is the new “cool.”  Providing brand fans with the opportunity to make their customer journey even simpler and more efficient through the mobile-friendly program will prove to be incredible useful.

It’s often easy to lose sight of the end goal of mobile loyalty programs with so many promotions and incentives in the marketing mix today.  For Dunkin’, the goal is ultimately to learn more about customer behavior and reward fans for that information.

We know that millennials are more than willing to share purchase information with brands when there is something in it for them.  Dunkin’ has created a seamless, mobile-friendly way for millennials to offer this valuable information while earning something along the way.

Well done, Dunkin’.

Author: Greg Vodicka, Assistant Account Manager at Barkley 

Photo credit flickr via Matt G and Fuschia Foot.