Dunkin' Donuts has partnered with Discovery Channel's beloved Shark Week of aquatic predator-related programming to bring you the above confection, the Shark Bite donut, a yeast donut iced with a red-and-white pattern causing it to resemble a life preserver.
The partnership extends to the Dunkin' logo on the Shark Week page, too—it's mostly the same, except it's had a bite taken out of it, and the slogan at the bottom reads, "Shark Week runs on Dunkin'" (rather than "America runs on Dunkin'").
The donut is going out to select stores around the country, says Harold Morgenstern, svp of national ad sales for Discovery. "Very rarely does Dunkin' Donuts change its logo," he pointed out. The deal is part of a larger Discovery partnership for the restaurant: "They'll be in all of our higher-rated premiere shows across the network," said Morgenstern. "For Shark Week, [Dunkin' is] new. They've been on and off the network for quite some time." Morgenstern says the partnership will also include a billboard in Times Square and ways for fans to interact.
"We're going to have 'Take a Bite, Take a Pic,' encouraging fans to take a bite and take a picture of it [for social media]. During Shark After Dark, we'll show some of those and have some prizing involved."
Accordingly, we felt like we should offer some suggestions for future donut/show integrations.
Nude Donut (Naked & Afraid) — It's free, but you don't get a napkin.
Crab Surprise (Deadliest Catch)— A box with 11 mousetraps and one donut inside.
Lucky Donut (Gold Rush)— Available to groups of 10 or more. One customer gets a delicious donut of his or her choice, and everyone else gets cold french fries.
Hide-A-Donut (Moonshiners) — Actually a flask.
Experimental Donut (Mythbusters)— Explodes.
We expect to hear back from Discovery about these suggestions any moment now. Shark Week comes back Aug. 10; you can get your life preserver donut at Dunkin' from Aug. 4.
