Ice cream brands serve up an extra large scoop of ad spend

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This article is part of our Ice Cream Report 2015.

Ice cream’s 10 biggest advertisers more than doubled spend on traditional ad space in 2014, forking out £14.7m, a rise of 147.6% [Ebiquity 52 w/e 31 January 2015].

Unilever brands dominate the top ten with Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s and Carte D’Or’s investment all reaching seven figures.

The overall rise was driven by the industry’s biggest advertiser Magnum, which in its 25^th year upped spend on space alone by 35.1% to £5.2m.

“Magnum’s phenomenal performance has been driven driven by a £13m integrated marketing campaign,” says Noel Clarke, brand building director for Ice Cream at Unilever. “The campaign aimed to get more Magnums into consumers’ hands and drive penetration while remaining true to Magnum’s heartland; chocolate and ice cream.”

As Magnum continued to splash the cash, following a 50% increase in 2013, both Ben & Jerry’s Greek Style Frozen Yoghurt and Carte D’Or are new to the top ten.

Ben & Jerry’s has become the category’s second biggest advertiser with its Greek style offering , ploughing £4.6m into cinema, press and TV advertising between its launch in April 2014 and January. Carte D’Or invested £1.8m largely on TV space.

And it looks like Magnum is set to remain the industry’s biggest advertiser after Unilever announced a £13m budget to support its new pink raspberry and black espresso ice creams this month.

As well as TV ads, the campaign will include outdoor, digital and social media activity, including the covering of five London buses with pink and black branding, using free on-board Wi-Fi to drive commuters to branded content.

Ice cream: top 10 advertisers

Media	TOTAL		Cinema	Outdoor	Press	Radio	TV
Brands	Spend (£)	Y-O-Y	%	%	%	%	%
Magnum	£5,271,868	35.1%	10.6%	19.7%	2.9%	0.0%	66.8%
Ben & Jerry’s Greek Style Frozen Yoghurt	£4,691,150	-	31.2%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	68.3%
Carte D’or	£1,805,718	-	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%	99.3%
Wall’s	£938,260	3.5%	0.0%	83.3%	0.0%	0.0%	16.7%
Cadbury	£834,212	2389.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	99.5%
Haagen-Dazs	£590,619	90.0%	0.0%	21.8%	78.2%	0.0%	0.0%
Kelly’s Of Cornwall	£525,955	-31.1%	0.0%	0.0%	9.6%	0.0%	90.4%
Mars Ice Cream	£23,622	11.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Mackies Of Scotland	£15,930	6358.1%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Weight Watchers	£3,901	-	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	0.0%
TOTAL (Top 10)	£14,701,235	147.6%	13.8%	13.2%	5.1%	0.0%	67.9%

Ebiquity - 1 Feb 2014 to 31 Jan 2015

Here’s our pick of the most significant ice cream ad campaigns of the past year:

Magnum: 25 Years of Pleasure

Ooh la la! Magnum marked its 25^th anniversary by pushing the brand’s classic chocolate flavour in an ad featuring young women skipping around ther sunny streets of Paris to the dulcet tones of Ella Fitzgerald. Punctuating the jazz soundtrack, or course, is Magnum’s trademark sound effect (thick chocolate snapping over ice cream). Targeting Magnum’s core female audience with pinpoint precision, Unilever says the ad ‘captures the indulgence which consumers associate with the Magnum brand.’

Ben & Jerry’s Greek Style Frozen Yoghurt

This Aardman animated ad featuring the Greek god Zeus lording it over a ski resort made of frozen yoghurt was part of Unilever’s efforts to pull in more health conscious consumers to the category. Part of an £8m campaign, the brand forked out a whopping £4.6m on airtime for the ad, the biggest investment in the UK in Ben & Jerry’s history. Unilever says the Greek Style ads have paid off, driving incremental growth for the brand.

Cadbury: Freeze the Joy

What’s not to like about a cagoule-clad 40-something dad dancing along a rainy seafront to Little Richard? Not only will this ad strike a chord with anyone who’s endured a British summer holiday at the seaside, Cadbury licence holder R&R has also managed to stay consistent with the positioning of the wider brand established by brand owner Mondelez in recent years. Sales aren’t slipping and sliding either: IRI says the brand is up 58.8% in value over the past year.