ORLANDO, FL — Just a couple of years ago, Dunkin Donuts was flush with brand love, but it was love rooted in nostalgia — not exactly what the chain needed at the time.

“The dangerous thing about nostalgia is it can trap you in time, and freeze you in a place where you can’t grow,” Tony Weisman, the 70-year-old company’s CMO, said Thursday at the ANA Masters of Marketing conference in Orlando. “The relationship (with customers) was broken.”

But, as Weisman said, brands relationships with customers can be refreshed and repaired, and new ones can be built. And that’s exactly what Dunkin (as it is today known) did with a top-to-bottom marketing overhaul aimed at keeping the brand relevant, particularly with young consumers.

Fast forward to today, and business is booming. In 2018, the chain registered its best sales growth since 2013; A study showed its brand value up by 73%, Weisman told a room of roughly 3,000 conference of attendees, with whom he shared lessons learned from the experience.

“Stay true to who you really are,” Weisman said.

For Dunkin, being true to what the company is was a steadfast part of its multi-faceted rebrand, that transformed not only its marketing but, in many ways, it’s business as well.

In the last year-plus, Dunkin has changed its look (brighter, more uplifting branding), its focus (coffee, including espresso drinks, has replaced donuts as the stores’ main selling point) and, most notably, its name.

Since January, the company’s 12,500 restaurants go by the one-word name Dunkin, rather than including the word “donuts” as well. The change, and the brand refresh behind it, was bolstered with videos featuring franchisees, many living the American dream, Weisman said. The move garnered Dunkin the most media coverage it’s had in his seven-decade history.

All of which, Weisman said, started by looking to Dunkin’s consumers to get the real story about what the brand means to them, the role the coffee and donut shop plays in their lives. What Weisman and his crew found, he said, is that the chain was indeed living up to the mission it’s had since it launched: brightening people’s days.

“We refill optimism. This is the role we play in our customers’ lives,” he said, adding that today’s version of Dunkin aims to showcase that in everything from its marketing to its menu. “This was the framing and centerpiece of everything we do. That’s our job."

It also means giving customers what they want, and changing with their needs and the outside factors that influence their consumption habits. For instance, Dunkin introduced value menus, which have been successful attracting customers in precarious economic circumstances. The company invested in fancy espresso machines, furthering its appeal to young, coffee-drinking consumers. In January, the restaurant started offering a breakfast sandwich with plant-based sausage (though don’t expect to see Dunkin serving kale anytime soon, Weisman added).

Dunkin also created a “frictionless” brand experience, meaning costumers can get the chain’s food and drink delivered, or order from an app.

Weisman also stressed the importance of keeping things both interesting and light-hearted. For Dunkin, that involves everything from replacing brown napkins to bright white ones with catchy phrases and selling pumpkin scented lip balm this fall, to more meaningful endeavors like hosting a prom for Boston Children’s Hospital patients.

In addition, he encouraged companies to keep things fresh, noting partnerships Dunkin has with companies including hometown Boston sports teams, Harpoon brewery and Saucony, which for the last two years has made limited run Dunkin-themed running shoes around the Boston Marathon.

“Don’t be afraid of intimacy,” Weisman said, echoing his theme that relationships take work. “The moral of the story is don’t take love for granted and sail into your own romantic sunset."

Photo: ANA