This week’s #TBT is a throwback to almost exactly a year ago when Amy spoke at Yale’s Explo, a 3-week summer program for exceptional young students who are open-minded, bright, and most of all – open to new experiences.
We love that kind of thinking, and Amy is honored to have been invited back this year to share a successful case study with the students and conduct an exercise where they will use their creative ideas to develop a mini-marketing plan. Amy will speak to Explo’s students next Wednesday, July 16th.
We love the philosophy of the Explo program, and we’re happy to support it however we can.
“This is your time: to explore, to try, to maybe succeed, and to try again. A summer at Explo will expand your realm of thinking, of trying, of doing — and foster a renewed love and passion for learning. At Explo, we teach because we love it. And if lives and choices made by Explo alums are any indication, it shows — and it sticks.”
Read on to hear about last year’s event and stay tuned for a recap of this year’s workshop.
Explo Marketing: Branding Ice Cream – July 2013
As Amy Graver tells it, Mario walked into her office with nothing more than a Tupperware container of ice cream and an idea. And on that day, she tells Explo Marketing students, a new business took its first steps.
It started out just as she said: the Tupperware, the ice cream, the dream. But in a market where artisanal ice creams jockey for place next to the big guns (Haagen Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s) on store shelves — and where indie ice cream companies such as Batch and Van Leeuwen are already holding their own — how would Mario’s ever have a chance of standing out?
Arriving prepared with samples to taste, Amy Graver — the Principal and Creative Director of Elements, an acclaimed Greater New Haven graphic design and marketing communications firm — tells Explo Marketing students how she and her colleagues helped Mario launch his product, from concept to design to full-fledged — and successful — company.
“Mario walked in a year and a half ago,” Graver says, “right off the street. His wife had given him an ice cream machine, and he just started playing around. But he also loved tea. So when he came in and told us ‘I want to open an ice cream company,’ he arrived with his concept (tea-flavored ice cream) and name, Tea•rrific!, already formed.”
What followed, she says, is the kind of work and research every good design and marketing professional must complete in order to generate the best look, feel, brand, and campaign for their chosen product. It entails figuring out where in the market such a product would fit (artisanal and all-natural, locally-sourced ingredients), what the price point would be (from $6-$8 a pint), who the audience would be (gourmet yet accessible), and how to sell it.
“We knew that if we could get people to taste the ice cream,” she says, “they were going to love it.”
Within 18 months, they managed to take the ice cream company from nascent concept to successful — and desired — brand, with plans for expansion beyond its current production and distribution routes. And all of it without once running a print ad or commercial. Instead, they relied on word of mouth, social media, and in-store tastings, which proved a giant hit and a boon to the growing brand.
A hand goes up, and a student asks, “How do you know what would be the right move for this brand? I mean, it sounds like you were able to kind of corner the market in some aspects — like with the flavors and the local ingredients — but how were you able to do that and make it such a desired product?”
“That’s a great question,” Amy says. “And honestly, it’s a tough thing to do, because what works for one brand won’t necessarily work for another.”
For Tea•rrific, the tastings were key — since tea-flavored ice cream might not be the first thing you think to grab off a store’s freezer shelf. As was the product design, which had to straddle the line between appealing to foodies while still remaining approachable to everyone else.
And for the students, tasting a few of the ice cream’s flavors — London Mist, Masala Chai, Chamomile, Ginger Matcha, and Chunky London Mist — made them full-fledged converts as well.
“I think the chamomile is the best thing I’ve ever tasted, ever,” another student says. “I could live on that.”
