iScream Friendly’s with Cone

Overview

Who doesn’t love a good scream? This past summer, Friendly’s gave a shout out to consumers – asking them to “scream” their love and passion for the brand through an interactive campaign called iScreamFriendly’s. Created by Cone, the iScream Friendly’s campaign goal was to reach a new demographic – teenagers and young adults (age 13-24). Providing teens and young adults with an opportunity to engage with the 72-year old brand and compete to score cool prizes, iScream Friendly’s was timed to generate awareness and trial for two new summer beverages, Iced Lattes and Friendly’s Chillers.

Objectives

  • Reach younger demographic by making Friendly’s relevant to audience
  • Increase excitement for & awareness of the brand
  • Drive traffic into restaurants
  • Tie into Iced Latte and Friendly’s Chiller launches

Program Elements

Iconic Logo – To appeal to a hipper, younger audience and leverage the latest pop culture trends, it was important to create an iconic image for iScream Friendly’s that would resonate with this demographic. The result, developed by marketing services agency Valassis, was a series of logos depicting ethnically diverse young adults sporting a Mohawk hairstyle and wearing Friendly’s earphones. The bold, playful and cutting-edge logos were used in a variety of communications – from the Web site and POP materials to bumper stickers and t-shirts.

Enter Early and Often – From June 4th to August 12th, consumers over the age of 13 were invited to submit videos and photos to the newly-created www.iscreamfriendlys.com Web site created by Valassis. Consumers were invited to send in a video or image they thought best represented their passion for Friendly’s – whether it was about their favorite ice scream flavor, their preferred meal or their own unique take on the brand. The public was invited to visit the Web site to vote for their favorite screams. Each week, for seven weeks, the top 10 video submissions and the top 10 photo submissions were selected through consumer voting. A panel of judges determined the weekly winners among the finalists in each category.

Hot Summer, Cool Prizes – Prizes included an Apple TV™ paired with a Canon® digital camera and a Video iPod® matched with a Bose® SoundDock system, among other cool items. All weekly finalists, plus 60 wild card entries, were judged in a final contest, where grand prize winners in both categories received a $10,000 Apple shopping spree. First and Second prize winners in each category won $5,000 and $2,500 Apple shopping sprees, respectively.

Mohawks Rock the Streets – In addition to the online contest, Friendly’s street teams sporting funky Mohawks pounded the pavement in more than 15 cities across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States during July and August. These teams distributed coupons for free Friendly’s Chillers and Iced Lattes, and showed consumers how to enter the iScream contest. Teams flooded the local areas with a variety of collateral – all featuring a mobile short-code and URL. The street teams placed stickers on phone poles, handed out postcards with coupons for lattes and chillers at shopping malls, helped consumers enter the contest, and made stickers available at the counters of music stores and coffee bars. Select individuals who texted “iSCREAM” to 30364 received an iScream t-shirt just for shouting out to Friendly’s.

Marketing Communication Elements – To support the campaign, Cone launched a multi-tiered media relations campaign to Northeast print, television and radio outlets. Various social networking sites, bloggers, music and film professors were also targeted. In addition, in-store communications and a limited amount of advertising were developed to support the campaign and promote the URL and mobile short-code.

Select Results

The iScream Friendly’s campaign generated strong results. Highlights
include:

  • 3,720 total entries (3,507 photos, 216 videos) on www.iscreamfriendlys.com and an additional 2,468 people registered to vote or comment.
    • 62% of all users were between the ages of 13 and 24
    • 69.1% of mobile users were between the ages of 13 and 24
  • 8,871 SMS initiations & 6,655 Mobile opt-ins – a 75% opt-in percentage
  • www.iscreamfriendlys.com viewer page views: 201,265
  • The Underground Campaign resulted in:
    • A spike in mobile messages in 17 of 20 markets on the days street teams visited a local city
    • More than 45,000 consumer interactions
  • Dozens of media placements were secured, including a mention in Stuart Elliot’s advertising column in The New York Times, as well as placements in Beverage Industry, Chain Leader, Boston.com, Boston Now, Nation’s Restaurant News, Tampa Tribune and great community stories in the Somerville Journal, Brookfield Journal, Hampden/Wilbraham Times, The Reminder, The Capital and York Daily Record.
  • 14 blog posts secured including: Cheap Gourmet, Snackable Content, Soft Ice Cream and Huffington Post.