America Runs On…Brand Extensions?

A commenter on Serious Eats reports that the event we’ve been quietly dreading since April has finally come to pass: good old Dunkin’ Donuts has introduced a line of personal pizzas and flatbread sandwiches. Currently, the new menu items are only available at stores in New England, Hartford, Tampa, and Springfield, MA. (By the way, someone should really tell the folks at Dunkies that two of the named cities are, in fact, in New England.)

Why do we have such an issue with this development? Quite simply, we’re bothered by unreasonable expansion from eateries that already have a good thing going. Dunkin’ Donuts makes awesome donuts, great coffee, and reasonable bagels. Brand extension can easily turn into brand dilution, so why mess with a winning formula? (We feel the same way about all the new menu items from Starbucks.) We’ll admit, however, that we wouldn’t totally hate the brand extension if the food turned out to be amazing. Given the facts that the pizzas and sandwiches are pretty clearly not made on site and that they just plain don’t look very good, we have low expectations.

Has anyone tried one of the new items from the DD? Tips, as always, are more than welcome.

Fast Food Extensions [Serious Eats]
Pizza and Sandwiches [Dunkin’ Donuts]

America Runs On…Brand Extensions?