Introduction
In September 2020, a fast-food chain put a teenager's coffee order on its national menu and watched its app downloads jump 57% in a single day. That is the short version of the Dunkin and Charli D'Amelio campaign, one of the most-cited influencer marketing case studies of the last decade.
The longer version is more useful, because the results were not luck. They came from a specific set of decisions any brand can study and copy. Here is exactly what Dunkin did, the numbers it produced and the takeaways you can lift for your own campaign.
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The setup: organic love, formalised
The most important fact about this campaign is what happened before it. Charli D'Amelio had been publicly professing her love for Dunkin since she first hit TikTok in July 2019, ordering the same drink, a cold brew with whole milk and three pumps of caramel swirl, without being paid a cent. She was, at the time, TikTok's most-followed creator.
Dunkin's creative agency, BBDO NY, noticed. Rather than inventing a fake endorsement, they formalised something that was already real: they named her exact order "The Charli" and put it on the nationwide menu. The campaign was not Dunkin renting an audience. It was Dunkin recognising a genuine fan and turning that authenticity into a product.
How the campaign worked
The drink launched on September 2, 2020, announced through Charli's own TikTok, Instagram and Facebook with an enthusiastic message to her fans. The mechanics were deliberately built for measurable action, not vague awareness.
- A named, orderable product. "The Charli" was a real menu item fans could buy, not just a sponsored post. A medium cost $3.19.
- App-tied incentives. Dunkin offered 100 bonus loyalty points to anyone who ordered the drink through its mobile app, pushing fans toward a trackable action.
- Two-way promotion. Both Charli and Dunkin pushed the launch hard across all their channels, turning it into a trend rather than a single ad.
- Preorder for pickup. The app let fans preorder, which drove app installs and daily active users at the same time.
That last point is the quiet genius. App downloads were a goal Dunkin had been chasing for years, so tying the hottest drink of the moment to an app-only perk turned a coffee launch into a customer-acquisition engine.
The results, in numbers
The figures below were reported by Dunkin's own brand team and widely covered across business and entertainment press. They are consistent across sources.
| Metric | What happened | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| App downloads | Launch-day spike vs prior 90-day average | +57% |
| App users | New daily-user record set on launch day | Record |
| Cold brew sales, day 1 | Boost across all cold brews, not just The Charli | +20% |
| Cold brew sales, day 2 | Surge the day after launch | +45% |
| Drinks sold | The Charli, in the first five days | 100K+ |
| Drink price | Medium 'Charli' | $3.19 |
Sources: Dunkin / BBDO via LBBOnline; Drayton Martin, VP brand stewardship, via Tubefilter and TMZ; StatSocial, Influencity case analyses.
Why it worked
Strip the campaign down and three forces did the heavy lifting. Miss any one and it would have fallen flat.
Charli was a real Dunkin customer before any deal existed. Fans could tell the partnership reflected something true, which is why it read as fun rather than as an ad. Authenticity is the precursor to every successful influencer campaign. You cannot manufacture it after the fact.
The second force was audience fit. Charli's enormous Gen Z following was exactly the demographic Dunkin had struggled to reach for years. The creator did not just have reach, she had the right reach. The third was the trackable mechanic: by tying the drink to app orders and bonus points, Dunkin converted attention into a measurable action, which is why it could report a precise 57% download lift rather than a fuzzy "engagement was up."
What Dunkin did next
The part most brands miss is that Dunkin did not treat this as one-and-done. It built a relationship. After the initial success, Dunkin ran a "Charli x Dunkin" contest, launched a merchandise line in March 2021 and released a second drink, The Charli with sweet cold foam. Charli became part of the brand's ongoing identity on TikTok rather than a single campaign.
This is the difference between renting an audience and co-creating with a creator. Dunkin's broader playbook reflects the same instinct, it even encourages its own store crew to post product content on TikTok, treating social as a continuous channel rather than a campaign slot.
Takeaways any brand can copy
You will not get a Charli-sized creator on a normal budget, yet every lever here scales down. The transferable lessons:
- Start with existing affinity. Partner with a creator who already uses and mentions your product. The authenticity does the selling.
- Match the audience, not just the follower count. Charli worked because her audience was Dunkin's target, not only because she was famous.
- Co-create something real. A named product, a custom item or a real collaboration beats a generic sponsored post every time.
- Tie it to a trackable action. An app order, a unique code or a preorder turns buzz into numbers you can actually attribute.
- Build a relationship, not a transaction. Follow-ups, merch and ongoing content compound a single launch into lasting brand equity.
How to use this with Flinque
The entire campaign rested on one thing Dunkin got right before any contract: it found a creator who already loved the brand. That is the hardest and most valuable part to replicate. It is exactly where the right tool helps.
With Flinque you can search 10M+ verified creators by niche and find the ones who already mention or align with your brand, then run a fake follower check and benchmark their engagement so you know the audience is real and the fit is genuine. Dunkin spotted Charli's organic love by watching closely. Flinque lets you find that same authentic affinity at scale, before you build the campaign.
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