Get Your Ice Cream!

Why Coldstone Creamery really does need to have its cake and eat it too.

Coldstone Creamery, best known for its Birthday Cake Remix, entered the Canadian market with a whimper thanks in part to its partnership with Tim Horton’s.

This strategy on Tim Horton’s part was very odd considering it had backed off on strategies to co-brand with other brands (see: Wendy’s).

Even though growth has stalled significantly in Coldstone’s American operations, the strategy to co-brand, now one year in, is also being considered for the American market.

Coldstone Creamery, and to an extent its main competitor, Marble Slab Creamery, encourages the ice cream experience by taking ice cream with high cream content, mixing in toppings, mostly candy bars, and smashing them together on an ice cold slab of marble.

But focusing on the Canadian operations, this approach is sorely misguided. Most of the locations in the GTA are very difficult to walk up to, an aspect that is a significant part of the walk-in ice cream experience.

There are zero opportunities for crowds to to congregate, a way for curious onlookers to pique interest.

One quirk of Coldstone is the “song for a tip”, where the ice cream artisans sing a jingle whenever a customer drops a tip in the tip jar and rings a bell. This quirk too has been dropped, essentially dehumanizing the service.

And most importantly, Marble Slab Creamery has encroached itself in high volume trafficked areas where Coldstone could have truly thrived. Many prime locations have now already been taken by Marble Slab, which, without question will make growth in Canada very difficult.

Marble Slab Creamery recently opened a location in the heart of the most foot-trafficked area in Canada, the Yonge and Dundas corridor. This location mirrors that of the Coldstone Creamery in Times Square. While Coldstone lovers wait up to an hour for their beloved ice cream in Times Square, the ones in Canada have almost seen lines that long at the Marble Slab at Yonge and Dundas.

But it’s not too late for Coldstone Creamery to gain a strong foothold in Canada.

This is where the strategy in co-branding with Tim Horton’s needs to end immediately.

The old adage of “LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!” holds true especially for Coldstone.

Coldstone needs to find locations where pedestrian traffic is consistently high.

Finding locations in places like Queen West, Unionville, downtown Oakville, Liberty Village, Robson Street, and other outdoor lifestyle centres would be a great start.

Most Coldstone locations in the United States are scattered in upbeat walking areas and upscale lifestyle centres.

According to Euromonitor, ice cream sales are still expected to grow 1% overall, withstanding health awareness and economic concerns, as potentially negative forces. Premium ice cream is expected to be the highest driving factor of this growth.

With the recent announcement of introducing Coldstone at the many service centres across Ontario, this opportunity is much more efficient than a straight co-brand with Tim Horton’s to increase customer awareness.

Travelers going on a road-trip, where any experience along the way will influence the memory of that individual’s specific trip, are usually frequenting these stops. What better way is there than to gain a positive brand position in minds of customers than in this manner?

While the current conservative approach is a suffice way to safely enter a new market, Coldstone has enough resources to go at it alone, and should do it soon.

Coldstone need to hear the bells ringing, and people singing, pronto.

Where's The Jingle?

OK, so I have decided to actually keep multiple blogs, just because I felt that filtering the content might actually allow my audience to be segmented and cater the content accordingly to the audience.

This is not my way of saying that I am conforming to what my audience might expect, rather, the marketer in me always makes sure whatever I do, I keep the audience at least at the bank of my mind. Again, thinking outside of the traditional journalism box.

I really love advertisements, to the point I have a playlists of songs on my iPod Classic specifically of advertisements and marketing communication strategies.

Advertising is truly undergoing a revolution of sorts, in my opinion, even though traditional channels are still somewhat robust. This ultimately reflects on the marketing strategies of brands and companies which I will probably babble about frequently in this blog.

Again, anything to do with the marketplace and advertising/marketing communications is something that I am passionate about, so I truly do hope you enjoy this blog.

Thanks for coming this far with me, and i'm excited for the wonderful world of blogging. Yes I am a laggard in this sense.