Last year, Dunkin’ Donuts paid dozens of faithful customers in Phoenix,
Chicago, and Charlotte, North Carolina, $100 a week to buy coffee at
Starbucks instead. At the same time, the no-frills coffee chain paid Starbucks
customers to make the opposite switch. When it later debriefed the two groups, Dunkin’
says it found them so polarized that company researchers dubbed them “tribes”—
each of whom loathed the very things that made the other tribe loyal to their coffee
shop. Dunkin’ fans viewed Starbucks as pretentious and trendy, whereas Starbucks loyalists
saw Dunkin’ as plain and unoriginal. “I don’t get it,” one Dunkin’ regular told
researchers after visiting Starbucks. “If I want to sit on a couch, I stay at home.”