“Coolish” is an ice cream type product that was first marketed by Lotte Co. in 2000. It quickly forged a new product category situated somewhere between the drink and ice cream sectors, and rose to enjoy explosive popularity in Japan as well. With the passage of time, however, there was a decline in the perceived newness of the product, with sales also slacking off. Against this backdrop, we proposed targeting the summer, as the top ice cream demand period, with a promotion and sampling aimed at shoring up the product’s sales.

A key focus was placed on the fact that eating ice cream functions to lower body temperature. The question was posed of whether eating ice cream to help ride out the summer heat, and thereby avoiding full-blown air-conditioner use, could contribute to preventing global warming.

Based on this concept, an inquiry-format promotion was devised within the framework concept of, “Saving the Planet with Ice Cream.” The idea was to bring onboard events geared to demonstrate how ice cream can lower body temperature (using thermography), produce limited supply packages, conduct samplings with about one million products and advance other activities.

The unique query of “Can ice cream really save the world” generated a solid response, thereby leading to success as a promotion structured to generate keen attention and newsworthy interest. The initial sales velocity generated by this effort worked out to a 1.5-fold increase over the previous year.