Cold Stone Creates Constant Craving
It is the article published in the Ad week on Feb 29, 2008. Cold Stone holds New spots for ice-cream chain target women 18-44. Cold Stone Creamery looks to make consumers crave its premium ice cream with four new TV ads breaking March 9. The high-end ice cream chain is targeting affluent women 18 to 44 with the new campaign that touts the many combinations they can create using its various ice creams and toppings. "Millions of combinations mean you can change your mind as often as you like . . . Cold Stone Creamery . . . Create your own mix,"
One spot touts its cake business, which is a growing segment for Cold Stone. This campaign is about cravability, showing thier products and the ability to customize the ice cream. Their goal is to increase traffic in Cold Stone Creamery stores and build brand awareness. Although the chain operates more than 1,300 stores in 50 states, there are pockets in some markets where brand awareness is low. They hope that will change with the help of the new campaign. Supporting online ads break in June. The ice cream segment has been flat the past few years except for premium chains like Cold Stone Creamery, Marble Slab Creamery and Maggie Moo, per Technomic, Chicago.
This new ad campaign is Cold Stone's second foray into TV. The previous campaign, which ran last year, was all about the store experience. Cold Stone Creamery is known for its outgoing "crewmembers" that have been known to break out into song. [The TV campaign] is a smart move. Ice cream is an impulse buy, so the thought needs to be put into consumers' minds.
This year the budget will grow 5 percent, per Schutz.
Currently, the place where I'm living in has the Cold Stone Creamery store at the fist floor. So I am one of the consumers who likely to eat it often. Also, I am always available to observe on it. In my thought, it is good idea for them to hold the target for the new campaign as women 18-44. . It is obvious that females like sweet thing, especially ice cream more than males do. Whenever I get it or pass along the store, I always see girls much more than guys. However, I don't really that many ads for Cold Stone during watching TV. They do outdoor advertisement and the particular songs with crewmemebrs. One spot touts its cake business, which is a growing segment for Cold Stone. This campaign is about cravability, showing thier products and the ability to customize the ice cream. It is very good chance for them to increase traffic in Cold Stone Creamery stores and build brand awareness, which has been their weakness in their marketing strategy.
posted by hye jin chung @ 4:00 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
When I first discovered Cold Stone, it was through word-of-mouth. One of my friends told me I had to try this place because the ice cream was the best she had ever eaten. Since I don't really remember many advertisments from Cold Stone when I first started seeing the stores, I believe word-of-mouth is how they got so popular in the first place. I'm assuming all they had to do was put a store in a certain area, and customers who visited the new store would create buzz about how good the ice cream is, because I think it's safe to say that most people think the products in Cold Stone are pretty amazing. However, now that they have been established, they obviously need to get the word spread around a little bit more to people who may not heard of Cold Stone yet. I saw the ads they had put out last year, but I honestly don't remember much about them. Hopefully with this new theme of "constant craving", the ads will generate more sales for the company. Also, I absolutely agree that their target audience, women 18-44, is a smart move because it is pretty typical for women to go out to get ice cream with friends, but that isn't something you usually see men doing.
Damon’s has been trying word of mouth advertising for a while as well and personally I don’t think it’s a good idea. In today’s market when decisions are made quickly and with little thought, the more exposure you have can only be a good thing. Especially when it comes to things like ice cream and casual dining you would want your business to be the first thing that people think of. As far as their target goes, while I haven’t done the research that I’m sure they have I wonder why exactly they picked that demographic. It would seem to me that women in that age group would be some of the most health conscious. Of course that may have part of the reason why they picked them. Either way I guess we’ll see how it works.
Good post. I have yet to see the ads on television, though. I wonder if they're employing a regional strategy -- it's already late spring in the South, but still winter here. Maybe we'll get a look when it's ice cream season -- as opposed to icicle season :-)
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