“America Runs on Dunkin”

In Hannigan’s reading he exemplifies the influence “retailers as well as restaurateurs, arena and stadium managers and, increasingly educators and cultural institutions” hold in the everyday life of the consumer. With the pressing issue of traffic congestion starting mainly in the early 80’s, consumers began to look for other alternatives to shopping at large retail venues. To revive the image of shopping at a large venue, the retail industry responded through combining a foreign synthesis of entertainment and retail, adding a realm of ‘experience, or fantasy’ to a day of shopping. Equivalent to malls and town centers using entertainment as leverage, eateries around the country began to adopt a new typology: themed restaurants. Now the influence of entertainment has far surpassed solely retail stores, yet has spread too many different disciplines all trying to attract “a new breed of consumer”. Restaurants such as the Rain Forest Café, the Hard Rock Café, and Planet Hollywood all implemented the notion of themed eating, attempting to redefine the norm, as well as bring a “value-added component” to dining. As if themed dinners were not enough, many restaurants continued to improve their image by immersing themselves into the “celebrity-soaked, media-purveyed public life of America”.

The reading “Spatializing Commodity Chains” begins to distinguish between the many complexities associated with coffee as a major commodity worldwide. The author notes that “coffee offered to a guest in Tanzania is not the same commodity as that sipped in a food court in North America…” Coffee is proven to be a powerful, even seductive commodity worldwide, yet from nation to nation its image seems varying. Today, famous chef Rachael Ray can be seen and heard across the country raving about Dunkin Donuts and even going as far to say “America Runs on Dunkin”. It is without a question that marketing ploys such as the one used by Dunkin Donuts, exemplifies a by-product of earlier implementations of fame as a source of “entertainment” to lure in consumers.