This is the end

Hello everyone,

The time has come, this is the last article of our blog. We hope that you spend a very good time on this blog and now, thanks to it, you understand better the ice-cream market. We tried to focus on everything we thought important and develop our ideas. 
Do not hesitate to comment if something is wrong with you, we will be very glad to answer and discuss about.

Thank you all for your visit on our blog. We hope you enjoy it.

See you !

Did you know that... ?

 

Did you know that the American Vermont-based ice cream manufacturer Ben & Jerry's is owned since 2001 by the British-Dutch mega giant Unilever? Of course you didn’t. The brand never communicates about that ownership. 

Ben & Jerry’s, represented by the founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield over almost twenty years, has the image of a traditional company. Tasty flavors and funny names like Karamel Sutra, Chocolate Therapy, and Chunky Monkey but also sustainable, Fair Trade certified ingredients and organic suppliers are, from the beginning, key factors of the success of the brand. Far away from the image that we may have of a conglomerate such as Unilever. 

However, the British-Dutch company had well understood the strong potential of this premium brand that attracted a large number of loyal customers. Yvan Couette, the French-born brand new CEO of Ben & Jerry’s (at the time of the merger) was the first to figure out that the strength of the brand was deeply rooted in its values. That is why Ben & Jerry’s kept working with farmers from Vermont, invested for the local community, increased its donations. Through its philanthropy, Ben & Jerry’s wanted to spread the core values of the company: “economic and social justice, environmental restoration and peace through understanding, and to support our Vermont communities" and to show that, even after the Unilever acquisition, their values remained the same.

So, we could wonder why nobody knows about this acquisition. Actually, the reason is quite simple. Ben & Jerry’s wants to keep the image of a traditional, local brand, close to its consumers. The two founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield embody the brand. People recognize them and associate them to the brand. When you eat a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, you imagine that those two guys from Vermont made it. The brand feels real, genuine and friendly. Ben & Jerry’s is one of those brands that we love, like Nutella for example. And we have to admit that it is easier to get attached with two nice guys with their cows than to a multinational company. So, we can think that Ben & Jerry’s (but Unilever too) wants to cultivate this image of a friendly and eco-friendly brand which resemble its consumers.

Moreover, a lot of people assimilate multinational companies to perpetual race for money, unemployment due to relocation and environmental pollution. That’s why it would be difficult for some consumers to understand how a brand owned by one of the biggest consumer goods company in the World could promote fair trade and support to local communities.

To finish, when there is a problem with a brand, if consumers know that this brand is part of a group and know the other brands of the same group they could assimilate the image that they have of the brand to all the other brands of the group. In other words, the unpopularity of one brand can affect the other brands of the group when consumers know them. For Unilever in France it was the case when people where encouraged to boycott all of Unilever brands after the closure of one Lipton plant. That is why sometimes it could be beneficial for a brand to stay independent on people’s mind.

Today, the brand is increasingly popular and stays true to its values. Since 2012, Ben & Jerry’s is labeled by Max Havelaar making it the first 100% fair trade ice cream brand. This commitment allows the company to pay a guaranteed minimum price to small producers and to finance social projects of their community. Actually, Ben & Jerry’s works with more than 33,000 small producers.

To conclude, Ben & Jerry’s managed to be a profitable company while preserving its corporate identity and brand image. If you visit the French Facebook page of the company, you will notice that the Ben & Jerry’s fan community represents the impressive number of 7 883 211 people.

Co Branding

Hello guys,

We talked about co-branding concept last week, its description, and an example of a success for the Brand Magnum. But we could notice that it is not always synonymous of success, even in the ice cream market in France.

Unilever and Danone tried to create together a new king of ice cream, a creamy ice cream (or a frozen cream) called Yolka. They developed a huge advetising campain, but only 3 years after the launching, they decided to stop the product.

This big failure remains to be linked with a problem of positioning. In fact, a study showed that French ice cream consumers only eat ice creams for pleasure, without thinking of health or nutrition. However, the two brands created the Yolka ice cream in order to bring a healthy component with "the yogourt in the ice cream".

                                         

Ice-Cream market innovation

Hello followers,

As we all know, in marketing innovation is very important. For the ice-cream market it is the same as every market. If you want to survive you have to innovate and create new products, new trends. 
There are many ways to innovate on the ice-cream market. You can create new tastes, new forms ...

I remember an innovation that marked my childhood. 
It was a new way of consuming thanks to a new form of packaging. It was easy to use but it had one default, if you do not eat quickly the ice-cream it melted and became very difficult to eat. The name of that brand was Solero but nowadays it is difficult to find this product.

More recently , in 2011 the innovation was little ice-cream balls in a little packaging with a lot of taste in it (banana, strawberry, vanilla, chocolate) (cf photo)

You can also innovate by creating new ice-cream tastes. Recently, during my holidays on the french riviera, I stopped in front of an ice-cream shop and I see a lot of tastes that I had never seen before. You had the choice between original ice-cream tastes like "Barbe à papa", Toblerone, Crunch, Chantilly, Meringue...

In conclusion, we can say that on the ice-cream market the main innovation concern the taste or/and the packaging/form. But as we can see with Soleo, the ice-cream market is very hard to penetrate because of the big brands and sometimes you face a failure. 
The different classic segment (Bars, Cones, cups, ice-cream tubs...) represent a huge place on the ice-cream market and it is very hard to innovate and create a revolution on this market.

“Happy birthday chocolate lovers”

In 2014, Magnum has celebrated its 25 birthday. One quarter of century of iced pleasure. For the occasion, Magnum launches a brand new range of ice creams and changes its packaging, with a big “M” as logo, more modern, more premium. This new collection is composed by the “Marc de Champagne” stick, a silver chocolate popsicle, which tastes like champagne and totally corresponds to the premium and glamorous image of the brand. You can also try the delicious Triple Chocolate pot, but also the White Chocolate and Strawberry stick and the Mini Baileys, for the Irish flavors lovers. But be careful, it’s limited edition!

Häagen Dazs commercial

In this one minute commercial, Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, Hapiness Therapy...) enters in a room to enjoy an Häagen Dazs ice cream.Very soon, the actor is tied up by a young woman who drives him in a more peaceful place. Obviously, Bradley Cooper thinks that he has seduced her but her only interest is the ice cream, she steal it from him and lock him down in the room.

In this commercial, we can see that Häagen Dazs respect its values.

It is a luxury environment with a lot of good-looking people. By choosing Bradley Cooper as new face, the brand insist on the seduction aspect. It reminds us the Nespresso commercials with Georges Clooney. He is very classy, good looking and a great seducer, as Häagen Dazs wants to be!
By watching this commercial we also know that Häagen dazs develops high quality products. The target of Häagen Dazs is clearly exposed in this commercial.

Häagen Dazs is doing commercial as the image of the brand. Classy, effective and spruce.

Co-Branding

Brands are each time more confronted with challenge of selling and gaining market share because of the endless choice and numerous product options. These brands have to rethink the traditional way to do business, which was to alter their core product or attract customers thanks to promotions or campaigns. One of the most visible alternatives and the well-known in the food industry is the co-branding.

It is simple to see why co-branding is so attractive. We take the most significant elements of the products of a brand and combine them with the best complementary brands to offer new goods and services. Building co-brand value increases awareness, meaningfulness of brands and elicitation of consumer feelings. And, we can find some examples in the ice cream market in France.

Magnum created an efficient online game in 2011 with a lot of brands such as Saab, Spotify, Dove (an “advergame”), in order to increase its leading position on the web compared with other ice cream brands. This successful game has been a way to communicate the new ice cream of Magnum while dealing with other brands.

If you want to try: here is the link! http://pleasurehunt.mymagnum.com/