Gisela da Rocha, account handler at Richmond based Radius Design Consultants, organised a "girls' lunchtime in" for the female members of the team A night in with the girls? Well, an hour in the conference room was as far as we got, but we did add as much giggling and gossip as we could. Our report may look overly critical when you consider the ice cream went down quickly, but we did have similar comments. Our verdict on the packaging was that it was quite strong overall, but it could have created a lot more impact. The branding of each chocolate bar is implemented powerfully, but the range would have a stronger shelf presence if the ice cream' type was consistent across all variants. This would give Mars instant recognition as the secondary brand. The M&M's pack was also too busy and too confusing. The eating experience was a bit disappointing as we expected the taste to be an exact replica of the individual chocolate bar. Although there were similarities, we thought the ice cream was synthetic in taste and texture, especially the Bounty version. The Mars variant was the most similar to its original manifestation and definitely had the highest rate of satisfaction, followed closely by Snickers. We had also expected the ice cream to have similar textures. Twix was the worst performer; the biscuit bits were too small and the flavour balance wasn't pleasurable. We would have liked a topping of hard chocolate that you can break through with a spoon ­ especially great when you eat ice cream straight from the tub. Overall, we decided that the brand does work in the ice cream tub format but some of the actual ice cream ­ at least without all the extra choc bits ­ lacks taste. We would buy again, but only to share. We felt the products could have had more of an adult positioning ­ perhaps to bring them into competition with Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs? The range as it is might be targeted more successfully at teenagers. It's probably more of a sleepover, pizza-and-coke night ice cream than a Chardonnay accompanied treat for the older generation. It was really too sickly to satisfy us women. {{MARKETING - P&P }}

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