How & Why Dunkin' Benelux Is Investing In & Fueling Growth With "Flavor"

Welcome back everyone.

This is Amitak Retail coming to you live from the Fusion Group booth at NRF Europe.

I'm Anne Mazinga.

I'm Chris Walton.

And standing between us we have another exceptional guest, we have Nacho Carnes.

Nacho is the head of strategy, data, strategy and paid media at Dunkin.

Nacho, welcome.

Thank you very much.

We're excited to have you.

Hello, how are you?

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited.

We've never had somebody from Duncan.

We've never definitely had somebody from the Duncan Benelux.

Oh yes, Duncan Benelux.

I forgot that very important clarifier.

So, so, yeah, so let's walk you, let's walk, let's walk through it with you.

So what, tell us about your career, your background and also about Duncan Benelux and all that you do in your role.

Yeah, so I, yes, I joined Duncan last year in September of 2025 after to work for different companies, different, different industries and trying to support the company to find quick wins and to try to create a strong strategy orient.

So the idea is to try to integrate new technology, new processes and to connect emotion with technology in order to create experiences.

Oh, go ahead.

What countries are you responsible for overall?

I have experience of more than 25 years.

I have been working for different industries for companies like Accenture, like Kaspersky City side Scene Europa.

So I think I'm a lucky, lucky guy because I work in the, in the digital strategy and advertising industry.

Of course, Internet is my passion and I think it's a great, great moment for us, for the company and for my life.

Spoken like a true Spaniard.

That's great.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk a little bit about how you are staying on top of what's going on in the QSR industry right now.

Nacho, what you're here at nrf, but what other places do you look to to help inform you about kind of what's happening in the industry?

I think every company should, should be focused on innovation, should be focused on experiences on, should be focused on what is the right technology in order to support the processes, in order to create these experiences and in order to loyal custom from us, we have changed the strategy and we have focused on flavors.

So flavor is our strategy.

Oh, flavor is a strategy.

Exactly.

Flavor and how we can connect flavor with moments, with expectations.

And this is the strategy, how we create new products oriented to these flavors and promotions, collaborations, et cetera.

And is that because of consumer preferences that have dictated that direction or why flavors being attached to things in that way.

The first thing we did is a strong research in order to know how we can connect with the Dutch culture.

So we analyze the reviews, we analyze the experiences.

We did some focus group interviews in order to understand how they feel when they go to dunking.

Yes.

And how they feel when they have any drink or any donut.

Of course, donuts is our key product.

Yeah.

But flavor is important.

For example, now Dubai Chocolate.

Oh, I know Dubai Chocolate.

I was just gonna ask for an example.

This is great.

Go, go.

Dubai Chocolate, of course.

We have launched the first donuts of Dubai Chocolate.

Shut the front door.

I didn't know that.

Amazing.

Every people like.

So innovation, experience, emotion and technology is the key for that.

And this is not only Dubai Chocolate.

We have hundreds of flavors doing by ourselves.

And for example, now we can print donuts.

So we have bought a print.

So we can draw through the different designs and then print them out.

Exactly.

For personalizing.

So personalization is important.

Maybe it's your birthday and you want to receive your.

I do want to receive donuts on my birthday.

People that will attend on invitation.

We also get donut for my kids.

That's okay.

Birthday donut.

Yeah, Chocolate birthday donut.

It for my kids.

They're moving up in the world.

All right, so how.

How so you talked about flavor as being a key part of the strategy.

What.

Where do.

Where do you think growth is going to come from for the organization and specifically from your role and what you're responsible for.

So we are Dutch company, but you know that Duncan is American company.

Our CEO, Mr. Vasali is from Egypt.

And we are really cosmopolitan people.

So we have people from different nationalities and with a single strategy and also learning every day because we also have the feedback in our stores.

So we focus on this experience and product.

And of course, we have implemented the right technology.

Right.

So we have implemented and we are implementing a CRM, of course, a cdp, customer data platform, in order to be able to play with anonymous data and also with personal data.

And we have optimized the processes in order to help people to understand.

I don't know if I told you, but we suffered a bankruptcy one year and a half ago, and the real founder of the company, Mr. Vasali, bought the company again.

So we create a new strategy.

We have developed new website, new app, and now the app is like the virtual DNA of our customers.

Okay.

And it's like a hub, so we call it information in order to focus on personalization.

Okay.

So it's important to integrate the right technology in Order to focus on the right targets and of course, in order to increase the frequency of our customers to loyal customers and to get recommendations.

So how do you, how do you take that investment in an app and this digital strategy?

Nacho.

And how does that work with your physical locations too?

Because people are still coming in to pick up the products.

What is that kind of relationship like between the digital customer and the physical customer and blending them?

Before this year was different channels.

Okay.

Now we are focused on an omnichannel strategy in order to orchestrate all the channels.

And what does that look like?

What does that change for the people working?

For example, we personalize offers and we identify the customers through the offer.

So we create a personal QR and we recognize through the kiosk online, in the website, in the store or in the app.

So we centralize all the data in a single point, we enrich the data of every customer and then we launch promotion for all of them.

So individualized promotions.

Okay.

Individual promotions.

Okay.

So depending on the level of relationship, the level of engagement, we recommend products and these products are personalized through qr.

Right.

So when you scan the qr, we identify the customer and of course we offer ad values.

Right.

So I'm curious, like, so you mentioned this, you mentioned that this all centers around data and you know, joining the data across the two streams, the stores, the online presence.

You mentioned the CDP earlier.

Where are you in that journey in terms of, you know, getting it to where you ultimately envision it or want it to be?

How would you answer that question?

So we collect data through the cdp.

We have different data sources and we increase the data sources.

For example, now I had a meeting with screens, with camera in order to try to help us to understand the products they see when they are purchasing through eye tracking.

So we are always including innovation and we are always thinking on data in order to create a really, really good profile to personalize.

And then we also create clusters, people that have similar behavior.

We create a cluster in order to other kind of promotion.

But for us it's important also the location where they are and then we can offer a specific stone.

So we are moving to a data strategy, trying to play and to work with first party data through the different platforms tool we are implementing.

And it's always focused on experiences.

Right.

So do you have any advice for people as they try to go through this kind of data overhaul to get more insights out of their data?

Like you're describing, like what's the best practice you could share with them to get Their arms around all the data that's out there.

The first thing I would say is we need to understand which data we have and where they are.

Because I still see silos and you need to connect the data.

So the most important is to understand the data you have and the capabilities you should have.

Because, for example, sometimes we have the same users in different databases.

Right, right.

And how we can solve this problem.

So new technology, new tools, new plat.

Of course, the artificial intelligence can help us in these processes.

Right.

Get rid of dobots.

But we also work not only with the data we collect, we also collaborate with other companies in order to deal data, in order to enrich the data we have, in order to offer additional values.

So the most important thing is I think we understand the technology, we understand our customers, and we want to make people continue to come into our stores.

So we have also a strong plan.

We have now 39 store in stores, sorry, in the Netherlands, nine in Belgium.

Okay.

An important plan to launch new stores also in Luxembourg.

Okay.

And we have a different business model because we don't sell franchise, we sell food and beverage.

So we flavor.

We flavors.

Flavors.

We are the owners of all the stores.

And it helped us to in our data strategy, in our marketing strategy, in our engagement strategy.

And this is the reason why paid media also help us to reach new customers, to engage with the current customers on to drive to our store and our website.

Well, you were on stage earlier today.

Paid media, I'm sure is something that people are.

We're curious to hear from you about.

What else do you hope that the audience took away from your session?

Nacho Paid media.

I love paid media.

Thank you very much for your question.

This is the first time Duncan Benelux has launched a dooh campaign.

Digital out of home campaign.

Okay, okay.

For the Amsterdam anniversary and also for other campaigns.

And it's the first time Duncan Benelux also invest on Connected tv.

Oh, Connected tv.

Okay.

So we are also testing new media in order to engage with new audiences and we also collaborate with different companies.

For example, now we have collaborated with Disney for the launch of new Simpson.

So we have collaboration with entertainment, we have collaboration with other companies in order to help us to promote our products or maybe to close collaboration in order to give some product to test to our collaborators.

So we are also thinking innovation, strategy, collaboration, and of course, as you said, flavors.

Yeah, right, right, right.

Are all the new efforts working?

Like, are you guys happy with the results you're seeing?

I'm guessing you are.

To be honest, we Are really happy now the company is growing every week we have designed new menus.

We have also changed stores, decoration in order to adapt to the new philosophy, the new strategy.

So we are testing, improving, implementing and expanding.

All right.

And for measurement, it's interesting because as I told you, we suffered a bankruptcy.

So now we are focused on incrementality.

Okay.

So no attribution incrementality in order to identify the net contribution and based on household measurement.

So it helps us to really understand through A B testing and other ways to really know if we are achieving, if we can grow and if we see important growth and capabilities and opportunities.

Of course we expand to the rest of the stores of the countries.

Sorry.

No, I'm curious as you're talking about collaborations.

Those are some big partners.

Disney and other side scene we have collaborated with them.

Is the tourist bus.

Yes.

Yeah, the big new collaboration Now I can't tell you, but yes, we have new plans for collaborations for this year.

I'm curious for our listeners, what is important about the partners that you're choosing for collaboration or collaboration initiatives like is there anything that you look for in a partner?

What we look for is complementarity.

Okay.

If we can offer something special to our customer, if we can get something special for them.

Right.

If we can create a new experience or if we can support in the plan.

For us, the most important is our customers so driving that we are thinking on them if their customers are aligned with our customers.

So we investigate everything we research in order to find a good partnership.

Yeah.

And then.

But this is partnership for promotions.

We also need to partner to find partnership for our operation.

As I told you, technology partners, platforms, CRM automation tools.

So of course need and we don't want to lose any opportunity.

This year we have focused on identify quick wins and to go to go to go to achieve targets through this and measuring through incrementality.

Right.

All right.

Nacho, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Thank you again to the Vuzion Group for making all of our coverage here at NRF Europe possible.

And we will be back with more interviews for you, so please stay tuned and until then, be careful out there.