Private View: Dunkin' Donuts should stick to coffee, not tiny houses

I have to applaud the audaciousness of pulling off a challenging and complex idea like this. But I think at its core, it lacks focus. It’s like a three-dimensional 6-set Venn diagram of Internet click bait: recyclable waste as sustainable biofuel that powers a transportable tiny home with interior design by Olivia Wilde. Oh and let’s add the classic Airbnb integration in, too.

There’s an infamously misattributed quote, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." Truly great ideas require effort to be distilled to their essence and then a slavish focus, executing on only what’s needed.

Too often simple ideas are besieged by outside interests which call to add more and more. But as creative stewards, it’s incumbent upon us to defend ideas from the tyranny of the superfluous and unnecessary. Don’t get me wrong, there have certainly been times in my own experience where I’ve faced the temptation to "add more." But we all should continually remind ourselves not to lose hold of the beautiful simplicity of a good idea.

So, I wish this rather clever and ingenious idea had benefitted from more time (or effort) to be honed, focused, and kept pure. Or as someone once said, made "shorter."

I know the brand that was "time to make the donuts" is long ago and far away. But, in the words of Seth and Amy, "Really?!," it’s Dunkin Donuts… um, I mean…Dunkin. Coffee. Do we need to sap every last bit of charm from the brand by building a sustainable, artisanal, handcrafted, small-batch house? Also, the world needs another cross-promotion with Airbnb like it needs another cross-promo with Uber (and I’ll admit they’ve both made appearances in about 37 of our presentation decks, but that doesn’t make it right).

Dunkin is an effortless brand. It’s about donuts and coffee and giving you a bit of oomph in your day. So, it’s great that someone found a way to make generator fuel out of coffee grounds, but let’s go to Ryan Zinke with it and maybe distract him from building another pipeline through sacred burial grounds and let the Dunkin brand be an orange and pink zephyr of coffee lightness in our purpose-driven day.

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