Strong brands expand with ice cream!

The times I eat ice cream are usually spontaneous and on the go. At the sight of a beautiful ice cream parlor, I change my mind. Therefore, it had been a while since I had given extensive thought to the ice cream store shelf. In my mind, traditional ice cream brands like Duke and Häaagen-Dasz still predominated. So when I stood in front of the store shelf the other day, I was surprised not to see these brands right away. What I did see was that two trends have clearly penetrated this store shelf: Blurring and Ethical brands.

Blurring means border blurring. In this case, I see the boundaries blurring between the categories in which brands operate. For example, I noticed that brands such as CoolBest, DubbelFris, Taksi and Katja can now also be found on store shelves with ice cream. I was curious whether brands from other categories have preceded them and whether those introductions were successful. For example, I saw that Bavaria introduced Radler ice cream in 2018. After the first introduction, more flavors followed, now I cannot find them on the store shelf.

That got me thinking about the goals the Blurring trend can serve in the organization. For example, I can imagine that Bavaria's primary goal was to increase brand awareness in a playful way and that revenue goals are secondary to this. I am curious to know whether it was a conscious decision by Bavaria to withdraw the product from the market again or whether the introduction proved insufficiently successful in the long run.

Then the second trend, Ethical brands. Brands that want to make the world a little better. For example, the Littlle cow & coockies brand that communicates "Great taste, small hoof print." The ethical aspect is reflected in all product facets. The ice cream is made from organic milk, with cookies made from European recipe (whatever that means) and packaged in a biodegradable cup.

The story is delivered with humor and the flavors sound good. Yet something kept me from choosing this ice cream: seeing the packaging does not make my mouth water. Is it because I can't see the ice cream? Because it's among the "healthier choices" like the Oppo Brothers brand or that "good for the world" and "sinful" don't go together in my head? Maybe a little bit of all that. It makes me realize that just doing good for the world is not enough, ultimately my need as a consumer still guides my choice.

So what ice cream did I buy? The luxury private label Italian scoop ice cream that at that moment gave me the strongest perception of that ice cream parlor that had been in my head all day. And it was delicious!

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