Baskin-Robbins is a global ice cream chain founded in 1953 in California. It has over 5,800 locations worldwide, selling 31 different ice cream flavors. In 2017, Baskin-Robbins Malaysia held a "Free Scoop Night" promotion during the SEA Games to boost social media presence. The agency FOREFRONT helped execute a campaign using the theme "OMG" to build hype and awareness. On event night, over 100,000 free scoops were given out, exceeding the 2012 event turnout. The promotion was successful in gaining new social media followers and high engagement on Facebook and Instagram.
2. HISTORY OF THE COMPANY
Baskin-Robbins is a global chain of ice cream parlours founded by Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins in 1953,
from the merging of their respective ice cream parlours, in Glendale, California.
It claims to be the world's largest chain of ice cream specialty stores, with more than 5,800 locations, 2,800 of
which are located in the United States.
Baskin-Robbins sells ice cream in over 30 countries. The company is headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts.
Baskin-Robbins is known for its "31 flavours" slogan. The idea for having so many came from the Carson-
Roberts advertising agency (which later became Ogilvy & Mather) in 1953, along with the slogan "Count
the Flavours.
3. It also was more than the 28 flavours then famously offered at Howard restaurants. In addition, the number 31 was chosen so
a customer could have a different flavour every day of any month.
Burt and Irv also believed that people should be able to sample flavours until they found one they wanted to buy ― hence the
iconic small pink spoon.
Baskin-Robbins franchisee, Mitch Cohen of New York, currently holds the Guinness World Record for scooping 19 ice cream
cones in one minute.
• COMPANY’S PROFILE IN BRIEF
• Name of Company: Baskin Robbins Flavors Inc.
• Address: 1001 S Victory Blvd Burbank, CA 91502-2548
• Type of Business: Extracts, syrups
• Industry Sector: Food & Beverage / Tobacco
• Market Target: Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Russia
4. Whats the case with BASKIN-ROBBINS?
• The 2017 SEA Games caused much excitement nationwide in Malaysia,
which saw several brands capitalising on the biannual multi-sport event to
launch campaigns and offers.
• Among the brands was Baskin-Robbins, which wanted to boost its social
media presence with the help of a SEA Games-related campaign. As such,
it roped in creative and digital agency FOREFRONT International to launch
the #freescoopnight campaign.
• This led FOREFRONT International to win gold for Best Idea – Integrated
Media at MARKies Malaysia 2018.
5. Problem
• If there’s something Malaysians can’t live without, it’s food. But start
the topic of desserts and you have yourself a national sport that
everyone will participate in. Baskin-Robbins wanted to treat all
Malaysians to a sweet reward of their favourite ice-cream flavours
with its “Free Scoop Night”.
• Aiming to replicate the success of its first “Free Scoop Night” after
Malaysia’s stellar performance at the 2012 London Summer
Olympics, FOREFRONT was tasked to create an engaging
campaign to build great momentum.
6. Solution
• The campaign’s concept – OMG, inspired by “Oh My
Goodness” – is a phrase commonly used as an expression to
convey excitement and surprise. FOREFRONT applied this
acronym using its own interpretation of Malaysian athletes at
the SEA Games 2017.
• The campaign’s target audience was Malaysians of all ages,
including new and repeat customers. FOREFRONT used an
integrated approach to maximise reach and engagement of the
target audience via all relevant touch-points.
7. Some of the OMG phrases used included: “Oh Malaysiaku Gemar”, “Oh My
Gold”, “On My Game” and so on.
• On-ground and in-store promotional items: In-store promotional
collaterals such as buntings, standees and digital banners were
used to maintain consistent offline experiences.
• Mainstream and alternative media: FOREFRONT leveraged on
b-rolls taken during the event and sent them to TV stations so
they could utilise them for broadcast purposes.
• Besides that, articles were structured and tailored to the
audiences of local daily online and offline newspapers, with
languages translated to Bahasa Melayu where necessary.
8. Objective
• To achieve Baskin-Robbins’ goal of re-engaging its customers,
the key objectives of the #freescoopnight campaign included
maximising the event turnout by increasing awareness and
improving the social media performance.
9. Execution
• Pre-event: The OMG-themed wordplay was mainly used in pre-event
social media postings to build awareness and create hype for Baskin-
Robbins’ target audience. Press releases were also issued to raise
awareness on event day.
• Event day: FOREFRONT covered the event using Facebook Live, and
shared the moments through Instagram stories. The #freescoopnight
social media campaign was also supported by on-ground and in-store
promotional items.
• Post-event: To give event and non-event participants a glimpse and
memory of the Free Scoop Night event, FOREFRONT created a highlight
reel and posted it on Facebook. The video acted as a reminder of the
good times spent with each other on #freescoopnight, united by the
narrative of “One Scoop, One Nation”.
10. Results
• Over a period of two hours on Malaysia Day (16 September
2017) between 8pm-10pm, Malaysians were treated to a
complimentary junior scoop ice-cream each.
• The campaign resulted in a 30km-long queue for Free Scoop
Night with more than 100,000 scoops of ice-cream handed
out – exceeding Baskin-Robbins’ 2012 Free Scoop Night’s
success by 47%.
• The story regarding the event was picked up by some of the
nation’s leading mainstream media such as TV3, The Star, New
Straits Times, The Sun Daily and Harian Metro.
• On top of that, alternative media such as World of
Buzz and Discover KL also covered highlights of the
#freescoopnight campaign.
11. Digitally, the campaign objectives were
met:
• Facebook: Baskin-Robbins’ Facebook fan page gained 6,892 fans
within the campaign period and an increase of 87.85% in
engagement.
• The series of #freescoopnight video postings showed outstanding
performances as well, with the most viewed video at 8.5,000 views
and a 2.16% engagement rate. These video postings also made it to
the “top 5 most-viewed videos” on Baskin-Robbins’ Facebook page
throughout the duration of the campaign.
• Instagram: The campaign increased its Instagram fan base by 3,602
fans, along with 9,123 engagements within the campaign period. To
top it off, there was a total of 641 posts from customers sharing their
experiences using the event hashtag –#freescoopnight on
Instagram.
