What is in the consumer’s mind when they think about their favorite ice-cream? What matters to them? And what motivates them or demotivates them to buy more? In our opinion, there’s no better way to find out than to look through the net to see if we could find some blogs of people commenting about these brands. It turns out that we DID find several blogs!! This is amazing because a blog is the ultimate expression of loyalty, once you have a group of people opening a blog just to talk about your brand, it means you must have done something good. In fact, Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen Dazs have done many correct things in order to stay in their customer’s minds and preferences. This is why now they can proudly look at the communities formed around their brand, and read their customer’s thoughts , likes and dislikes thorough the internet. What else could B&J and Haagen Dazs ask for? Having a group of people passionate about your brand, interacting as a community just because of your brand, can bring them many advantages, one of them “Publicity” and that is the case of some blogs we saw in which Haagen Dazs actually interacts with the community and gives them a special edition Ice-cream cake all they had to do is register and answer some questions. Anyway, here we wrote some of the quotes we found in several blogs on both brands so that you can understand how passionate people can get about these brands.
We have Carolyn Jung saying in his blog “Food Gal”[1] “If it’s summer, it must be time for new Häagen-Dazs flavors”. This comment is followed by a review of the new season’s flavors that will be offered by the brand. If you take a look to the full post, you will see that it didn’t go unnoticed, as we can read the thread of comments by the followers (We could say, the Häagen Dazs community), expressing their love for the new flavors.
Somewhere else in the net, we found Eyder Peralta commenting on the new flavor of Ben & Jerry’s (scheweddy balls) [2]; “Being a Cherry Garcia guy myself, I appreciate some nuance in my ice cream, a bit of tartness to tame the sweetness of the ice cream. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no prude, but the flavor — like the name suggests — was missing a bit of delicacy.”. There are two important points on Eyder Peralta’s post, he is identifying himself with a Ben & Jerry’s flavor. We don’t care what is the Cherry Garcia flavor to him, but to Eyder is clear and it is important, because this means he has bonded to the brand. Now, he has got an emotional link to the brand, which will make him a loyal customer.
Adapting to the new marketing was of communication, such as blogs or facebook is an essential part for boosting your brand’s community. It means for the brand to take new risks, open different channels of communication and increase the interaction with their consumers. We have a clear example with what Häagen-Dazs did together with “Sugarscape”[3] in the UK. Here Häzgen Dazs made a partnership with the author of the blog and agreed to give the blog followers a free sample of their exclusive and special edition of “Mango Fleur de Glace” which is a cake and ice-cream at the same time. This is the quote of the blog:
“The limited edition Häagen-Dazs ‘gâteau glacé’ has been designed by world renowned Dutch designer Kiki van Eijk. As pleasing to the palate as it is to the eye, Kiki’s beautiful ‘Mango Fleur de Glacé’ is a deliciously unique combination of mango sorbet, passion fruit coulis, macadamia nut brittle and hazelnut biscuit”. “Fortunately we've teamed up with Häagen-Dazs to give away one of these cakes to one extremely lucky winner!”
We also have traditions; the best way to prove there is a real link between the consumer and your brand is when both parts were able to create a tradition or a ritual that you know will be repeated. The best example we have is Ben & Jerry’s with the “Free Cone Day” started in 1978.
As Tracy Feger posted in her blog “United Way of Greater New Haven”[4] “On Tuesday April 12, 2011, all participating Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shops world-wide celebrated a 32 year old tradition as they once again hosted free cone day. It is a tradition that has been repeated year after year, and that has lots of people waiting every year for this day to arrive."
As you can see, Ben & Jerrys’s and Haagen Dazs are in our customers’ hearts and minds. We can see that what matters to the customers is not only the flavor but also the way each brand manages itself, the names they give to their flavors, the way they express their values, how they pamper their customers with a free cone day, etc. It is all together that makes a customer become loyal and passionate about a brand, passionate enough to form communities about it.
[3]http://www.sugarscape.com/main-topics/homepage/681087/win-limited-edition-h%C3%A4agendazs-
1 comments:
this post is good, makes me want to eat!
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