Ben Affleck decides he might as well get some money out of promoting Dunkin’ all the time
Ben Affleck was spotted working a Medford, Massachusetts Dunkin' drive-thru with Jennifer Lopez yesterday as part of a commercial shoot
Film Features Dunkin
Ben Affleck is a big celebrity, but he’s also a dude who refuses to turn his heavily tattooed back on the places, people, and things that have led him to his current success. Case in point: He will always make films about Boston, he will always show up in a Kevin Smith movie, and he will always buy his coffee from Massachusetts institution Dunkin’ Donuts.
Because of this last point, we suppose it was inevitable that Affleck—for so long an unofficial spokesperson for Dunkin’—would eventually end up doing some paid promotion for the coffee franchise he loves so deeply. And yesterday, he did just that, showing up at a drive-thru to hand out orders as part of a commercial shoot.
As a whole bunch of tweets and an on-site Instagram photo show, Affleck was seen working the drive-thru in Medford, Massachusetts, wearing a company uniform that might have been supplied to him for the occasion or brought from his personal wardrobe. The Boston Herald, quick on the Dunkin’ and Affleck beat, wrote that Affleck was joined by Jennifer Lopez to give out orders, reportedly while shooting a commercial for the chain.
The first photo of Affleck manning the window was taken by Lisa Mackay, a Medford local, who writes on her Instagram post that she was surprised to find Affleck and Lopez at Dunkin’ while grabbing her morning coffee and who told the Herald that she “was so nervous” to see the movie star avatar of Massachusetts coffee franchises in person.
Afterward, still eager to continue his Dunkin’ missionary work, Affleck was seen hand delivering another take-out order to a nearby firehouse, which is great because it’s both a nice thing to do and because it’s given the world this image as well.
Somehow, as if the Affleck promo wasn’t enough on its own, Dunkin’ also managed to recruit another celebrity to its cause last night, paying Best Actress winner and fellow Bay State native Jennifer Coolidge to post about the chain during last night’s Golden Globes. From this, we can only guess that Dunkin’s current marketing plan is to hire every notable figure from Massachusetts to sell its products and will accordingly begin looking forward to further promo featuring Conan O’Brien and a hologram of JFK eating Munchkins together.
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49 Comments
“Like the back of a Volkswagen?”
Speaking of celebrities and food products, It’s a damn shame Michael Rooker never got an endorsement deal peddling chocolate covered pretzels.
One of the universe’s missed opportunities.
You learn to love what you grow up with, I suppose. I didn’t grow up with Dunkin’, and, as such, it’s maybe my 5th choice for coffee, behind at least a couple of gas stations.
Make no mistake, their product is garbage. I think it really went off the rails when the majority of stores stopped making their own donuts and they switched the focus to coffee over the actual donuts.
I didn’t grow up with coffee at all. My generation, AFAIK, simply never thought to do it; it was strictly a grown-up thing, like tobacco.But since then I have tried a great many and, for some reason, Dunkin turned out to be my favorite. They do a good decaf. Whenever the “who has the best?” debate starts I always remember that we all taste things differently (it’s genetic, apparently). So what’s your favorite gas station?
Same with me. I know for a fact my parents would not have allowed me to get coffee when I was a kid or teen growing up, and they would not have approved. It’s strange how things change, because now it’s no big thing, but at the time yeah it was taboo, and I can remember it seeming kind of edgy and rebellious if someone in school did drink coffee. And it’s Casey’s. I like their pizza.
The Goodwill I work at sells bottles of iced french vanilla and mocha Dunkin’ coffee, and I drink ‘em every week.
Wait, what?
I don’t understand your question.
Goodwill as in second hand non-profit store?
Yeah. They sell non-second-hand things too.
Is that what gives you an Iron dinobody?
It is not my first choice for coffee (but mainly because when you ask for ANY small amount of milk or sugar, you get a mountain of both) but it is my surefire first choice for donuts. If i’m making a list of my favorite donut and donut-related items, Dunkin has at least seven of the top 10.
But yes, I grew up with Dunkin as the only real donut option (the weirdly cakey and soggy donuts in my high school cafeteria come in a pretty close second). Never developed a taste for Krispy Kreme. Might be a weird thing to say, but they’re just too sweet. They’re actually like the donut equivalent of Dunkin’s light and sweet coffee, now that i think about it.
There is absolutely such a thing as “too sweet.” Not as bad as too salty, I guess?
Yeah, Dunkin coffee is hugely overrated. It’ll do in a pinch, but I would never go out of my way to get it. Of course, if you’re in Boston, you never have to out of your way to get it.
Lifelong New Englander here. Dunkin’ is trash. It *used* to be alright, but now they’re one of the country’s foremost purveyors of caffeinated brown water and I do not understand it.
“HOW DO YA LIKE THEM DOUNTS?!”
lol
“And how do you like those very same apples, Eggers?!”
“Afflunk” doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way “Dunkaccino” does
I’m 100% certain that I would not recognize Affleck in a situation like this. But then all white people are starting to look alike to me.
I wonder if there is a name for this in cognitive science or psychology, but I have had experiences where I fail to recognize someone because I see them outside of a normal context. Like, there was a person I knew from working on freelance jobs, and would see him fairly frequently as it was a small industry, but then one day I bumped into him in a totally different setting, and for a split second I lost who he was before I made that connection. So I could definitely see that happening, where if you encountered a famous person in this setting, you might not recognize them, because it would be so implausible and incongruous that cognitively you might just draw a blank.
There should be a cognitive science term for this, because every time this happens to me I get dizzy or light-headed, like I’m dreaming. Happens if i see a celebrity in a line or something, happens when I see a coworker at a beach town 100 miles away from work.
Check my reply below. I found some science; not sure if it’s the right kind, though.Concerning Affleck: we always see him all spruce and polished up in the movies. Not a hair out of place and perfect lighting vs. no make-up and a Donut cap and uniform. He looks like half the guys in my Midwestern state, lol.
Well, now I have to know, lol. Found this:“The ability to recognize faces is so important in humans that the brain appears to have an area solely devoted to the task: the fusiform gyrus. Brain imaging studies consistently find that this region of the temporal lobe becomes active when people look at faces.” http://www.science.org.And“What is it called when you don’t recognize someone you know?“Many people with prosopagnosia are not able to recognise family members, partners or friends. They may cope by using alternative strategies to recognise people, such as remembering the way they walk or their hairstyle, voice or clothing”. http://www.nhs.ukMaybe we have prosopagnosia!
That happens to me with mail carriers, UPS drivers, and sometimes other costumed employees — but particularly mail carriers. It takes me quite a while to figure out “Where do I know you?”
I saw like 15 tweets/IG posts about this and I thought everyone was making the same “haha this dude looks like Ben Affleck” joke. I didn’t even think it looked that much like him.
I saw those too, lol.
You’d recognize him after you saw all of the production trucks and signs that said “by being here you consent to being filmed for commercial purposes” signs you’d pass and as you waited in an hour line after store employees texted everyone they knew the night before, I think.
And do they smell like bologna?
I have never related to Ben Affleck more than I have with that picture of him scarfing down two donuts while holding a large iced coffee with cream.
“Go back to Stahbucks!”
And whatever else you may think about Casey Affleck, the reason that skit is so funny because it portrays Massholes, much of the Boston metro area, and Dunkin Donuts so accurately – or as a boss of mine once put it, “Yeah, you really need to go to a Saturday morning Bruins game at the Garden. Just once, though.”
Holding the cigarette out the door was the clincher.“I’m not smoking in here!”
Came here to say the same. When I saw that move, I was like “Someone did the research …”
I hope that noted cheapskate Jennifer Lopez didn’t complain about the measly tips they likely received for their “hard work”.
Dunkin Donuts (I refuse to call it just “Dunkin”) is crap. It has been crap for quite a while. I live in the heart of the DD cancer, Quincy MA, the birthplace of DD (and Howard Johnson restaurants). Their doughnuts (dog-nuts) and other baked goods are not baked on premises anymore; their coffee is garbage compared to any half-decent espresso. Hell, I would take Starbucks over DD any day. (Yes, you read that right!)Bennifer 2.0 need to get more sophisticated about their morning routines; get a Nespresso machine as a start, then work your way up.
As a fellow Masshole, I want to point out that Medford is the perfect place for this. I don’t have a Boston accent, but even in my head Medford can only be said with a Boston accent.
Med-fuhd.
LOL, I totally pronounced in my head with the Boston accent when I read.
Dunkin Donuts’ marketing team is forever cursed to live in the shadow of that Dunkaccino/Al Pacino commercial that never actually existed.
“Conan O’Brien and a hologram of JFK eating Munchkins together”
I like this idea.
This article is legit the first time I’ve ever heard of Dunkin’ Donuts referred to as a “coffee franchise”, and I grew up in New England.
New Yorker, here, and I do think of them much more for their coffee, which I used to drink quite frequently, since the company I used to work for ordered it for most meetings. Unlike most brands, it never made me feel sick—even when it had been in the fridge for a few days. On the other hand, I’m not sure I’ve eaten a Dunkin’ Donut in the last decade. They’ve always seemed to taste so much worse than things that look exactly the same from local donut shops. I never understood it.
Dunkin’ coffee is the only thing of theirs I can put in my body that doesn’t make it violently ill. I drank a lot of Dunkin’ coffee in school just because there were two of them just in Suburban Station and one half a block from campus.
Yeah, but we all know Casey is, like, the “Mayor of Dunkin.”
Affacino? Dunkaccino!https://genius.com/Al-pacino-dunkaccino-lyrics
The Royals visit a few weeks ago – “Meh …”Ben Affleck mans the Dunkin’ window in Medford – “SCHOOL’S CLOSED TODAY!!!!!”