The objective was to keep Ben & Jerry’s top of mind, relevant compared to its competitors, post--summer holidays and throughout the year. ? Mindshare’s solution: An “On Demand Ice Cream Chat Bot” through Facebook Messenger, giving Ben & Jerry’s a unique and new way to offer consumers a way to devour a pint of ice cream during their Netflix binges.

Consumers would simply log on, pick their favourite pint, track their orders in real-­time, interact with Ben & Jerry’s very own Ice Cream gurus, while they wait for their curbside delivery in a matter of minutes. Through paid media Mindshare drove top-­of-­mind awareness during peak munchie time.

As a company, Unilever’s social buys are usually focused on reach as the primary KPI however, this e-­commerce campaign allowed us to measure real time conversion to sale. A myriad of ad units, copy + image variations and targeting nuances were leveraged during the campaign to help maximize leads. In addition to the traditional direct response vehicles and buying options from Facebook, Mindshare secured participation in a first to market Facebook Messenger ad alpha test. The Messenger units were the perfect ad option to drive this relatively new behaviour in Canada of using a Chat Bot to interact with brands.

Millennial urbanites are needy. They have increasing expectations around the demand for products and services to cater to their lifestyle in a way that makes it easier on them. With students back on campus and Netflix binging season on the rise, Mindshare knew this would be an ideal time for Ben & Jerry’s to connect directly to this generation and make purchasing a pint of ice cream simple and easy.

By optimizing media daily Ben & Jerry’s was able to sell 4x more pints from the start to finish of the campaign which launched on September 27th, 2016. The paid media cost per lead decreased by 28% over the course of the campaign and averaged a seven-­minute delivery time! The fact that Mindshare could shorten the gap for point of sale direct to consumers, this direct to consumer approach, the ice cream bot became the
number 1 retail location without stealing shares all through incremental sales and more importantly, all through media. Even better, Ben & Jerry’s continues their upward trajectory of year over year double digit growth and Unilever garnered valuable learning to apply to Global and Local campaigns moving forward.

Leveraging new technology matched with a rising trend, Ben & Jerry’s could capitalize on the inclination of younger audiences to order online. By building a quirky Chat Bot that delivered pints of ice cream on demand, promoted with paid media Mindshare was able to successfully test out new revenue streams for Unilever and keep Ben & Jerry’s top of mind throughout the Fall when ice cream is not often on one’s wish list.