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.

The Brief

Total Budget : $3,276,200 Press Event : $120,000 Ice Cream Drawing Event : $200,000 Promo Video : $55,000 Website : $20,000 Influencer Posts : $50,000 Celebrity Casting : $270,000 PR : $6,200 Outdoor Ad Production : $70,000 Outdoor Ad Placement: $100,000 Digital Signage Ad Production : $90,000 Digital Signage Ad Placement : $45,000 TV Ad Production : $150,000 TV Ad Placement : $2,100,000

Creative Execution

Following a press conference and video launch, we distributed 480,000 spoons to supermarkets around Japan, where they 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.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

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%.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

We developed a campaign for SOH ice cream that reflected its brand value of “stop worrying, be happy,” by utilizing the ice cream’s unique packaging—a cube that gives it the look of a canvas-like square, instead of a cylinder like other ice cream products—to sell the idea that SOH was designed for playing, in the form of ice cream art. By promoting a new food-based experience that was thrillingly transgressive in how it encouraged playing with one’s food, we deepened the brand experience for consumers, resulting in increased sales.

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.