The Campaign

Based on research indicating that drawing pictures made people happy, we invited the public to “play with their food” by drawing pictures on our SOH ice cream—a campaign that made use of the fact that SOH is packaged as a cube that gives it the look of a canvas-like square, instead of as a cylinder like other ice cream products. We wanted to create an entirely new kind of eating experience—one that combined eating food with making art.

Execution

were handed out to customers for free. TV ads showed famous people displaying their ice cream art. Meanwhile, we solicited works from thirty celebrities—including illustrators, comedians, rock bands, and baseball players—and asked them to upload their ice cream art to social media. We then incorporated these works in outdoor and online advertising. We also organized ice cream drawing events in areas of central Tokyo that get a lot of foot traffic, and we displayed works created by the public. In the process, we generated enthusiasm for a brand new eating experience that involved playing with one’s food.

From cute works by children to surprisingly detailed sculpture-like works, many images of ice cream art were uploaded to social media, garnering 100,000 likes and nearly 8 million social media impressions. The campaign also received exposure on over 1,000 online and offline media, including on TV, which provided publicity worth $5 million. YouTube celebrities uploaded unsolicited videos of themselves creating ice cream art. Eighty percent of surveyed customers said that playing with their ice cream in this way made them feel happy. Some people were even willing to pay money to get a hold of the special spoons, which were limited in supply. Following the campaign, sales of SOH ice cream at convenience stores increased 108%. Through the campaign, we were also able to promote a socially acceptable version of playing with one’s food—an act normally considered a cultural taboo.

The Situation

We developed a campaign for SOH ice cream that utilized the ice cream’s unique packaging—a cube that gives it the look of a canvas-like square—to sell the idea that SOH was designed for playing, in the form of ice cream art. By introducing an entirely new way to enjoy food that customers felt was creatively inspiring, we were able to promote the idea that playing with one’s food is not necessarily a bad thing, in the process redefining what is normally considered a cultural taboo.

The Strategy

To encourage the public to get on board with our campaign, we developed special ice cream spoons with ends shaped like pencils and other art tools, and gave them to our customers for free. Essentially, these were toys designed to trigger our customers’ creative impulses—and to remind them that there was a time in their childhoods when they used to play with their food with total abandon. Our goal was twofold. One was to create a user-led campaign in which customers generated conversation about the campaign by uploading their favorite works of ice cream art to social media. The second goal was to generate public approval for an activity—playing with one’s food—that is considered socially inappropriate.