BOSTON, MA: Dunkin’ is adding a jolt to its marketing approach, putting its creative account into review just months after hiring a new U.S. chief marketing officer.

The review includes incumbent BBDO Worldwide, according to three people familiar with the matter. The review is being conducted by Joanne Davis Consulting, which declined to confirm and referred calls to Dunkin’. BBDO also referred calls to Dunkin’.

The No. 2 coffee chain hired Omnicom Group’s BBDO Worldwide as its creative agency in April 2018. That appointment ended Dunkin’s 20-year run with Hill Holliday, which introduced the tagline “America Runs on Dunkin” in 2006 and declined to participate in the 2018 review.

Dunkin’ hired Coca-Cola executive Rafael Acevedo as its U.S. CMO in June. Acevedo held various roles at Coca-Cola North America, most recently serving as VP, marketing and general manager for Coca-Cola Co’s tea portfolio. At Dunkin’, Acevedo filled the role vacated by Tony Weisman in late 2019.

Dunkin’, which dropped Donuts from its name in 2018 and was acquired along with Baskin-Robbins by Inspire Brands at the end of 2020, confirmed the closed creative review is ongoing.

“Dunkin’ has had a positive relationship with BBDO and we are proud of our work together over the past three years,” the company wrote in a statement. “With new challenges ahead of us to grow the brand and remain modern and relevant, we are conducting this creative review to determine the best agency partner to achieve the next phase of growth and drive greater business results for our franchisees.”

Dunkin’ had U.S. sales approaching $9 billion last year, making it the clear No. 2 player in the coffee category, though it is still less than half the size of industry behemoth Starbucks.

The coffee chain has been running ads for a variety of products in recent months, including items such as avocado toast and Sunrise Batch iced coffee. This month it introduced football-themed commercials featuring New England Patriots players Devin McCourty and Kyle Van Noy—a nod to the brand’s Massachusetts roots.

In February, Atlanta-based Inspire Brands selected Publicis Groupe as its media agency of record, adding more Inspire chains to the roster on which Publicis’ Zenith and Digitas already worked. Publicis created a new unit, Inspire Media Engine, to handle the account. Dunkin’ had already been working with Digitas before Inspire gave more of its media business to Publicis.

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New CMO smells like a plan is afoot