DoorDash Strategic Communications Plan

This plan was created for a project centered on a fictional corporate milestone: DoorDash offering over 1 billion items for delivery.

Communications Approach:

Position this milestone as a celebration of the power of consumer choice enabled by DoorDash’s evolution into a multi-category local commerce platform. Rather than focusing on volume alone, use human-centric storytelling to demonstrate what access to a wide variety of items facilitates: a gateway to the uniqueness of local neighborhoods and what they offer, and expanded opportunities for businesses. This framing translates a number into a meaningful narrative of connection, discovery, and opportunity. Highlighting how more items unlock more ways for consumers to engage with businesses in their surrounding area reinforces DoorDash’s mission of strengthening local economies through technology. The result is a compelling “why” behind the milestone that aligns with DoorDash’s long-term corporate story of innovation, scale, and impact.

External Core Messages:

1. DoorDash has evolved into a platform that reflects the full diversity of local commerce.

2. More items means broader access and connection to the uniqueness of every neighborhood.

3. Expanding choices creates new opportunities for businesses of all sizes to grow and reach new customers and communities.

Channels and Tactics:

• To execute this plan, I recommend a digital-first storytelling approach that leverages DoorDash’s owned media channels, starting with a newsroom announcement to anchor the milestone and frame its relevance in the context of the external core messages. DoorDash executives could amplify the announcement on their LinkedIn accounts. 

• Using the announcement, I would pitch lifestyle and business reporters, offering them an opportunity to speak with a designated spokesperson about how DoorDash has continued to evolve and expand as consumer shopping habits have shifted beyond traditional storefronts. 

• Across DoorDash’s brand social channels, including Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn, we would launch a short-form video series titled “Discovered on DoorDash,” featuring consumers sharing stories of local businesses that they first found through the platform, where they have since become regulars. These videos would emphasize discovery, neighborhood flavor, and community-building. For example, a consumer reads a local review of a Caribbean restaurant in their neighborhood, uses Doordash to deliver jerk chicken, and becomes a frequent customer. 

• On the DoorDash blog, longer-form storytelling would spotlight restaurants serving uniquely local dishes, or retailers offering unexpected, niche items, sharing the backstory behind those offerings and how DoorDash has helped them reach new customers. For instance, Doordash delivers sesame cookies made by a local baker who uses her grandmother’s traditional recipes to a neighborhood newcomer who misses the taste of home.

• Finally, DoorDash could sponsor local neighborhood tours for top users to sample food from local restaurants and explore new retailers that deliver on the platform. 

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Marketing and Brand: Align creative direction, tone, and visual assets to ensure that we remain consistent with DoorDash’s brand voice and image.

• Event Marketing: Assist with planning and executing the neighborhood tours.

• Audience Insights: Help identify engaged users who have discovered new local businesses through DoorDash and are willing to participate in storytelling.

• Merchant Strategy and Operations: Identify and source restaurant and retail partners for spotlights, and support coordination and participation logistics.

• Policy and Legal: Review newsroom copy, social content, and external pitches to ensure accuracy and compliance.