During a period when the brand had limited product supply, “the Agency” was asked to retain and build on brand love when supply chain issues were causing cars to not be readily available.
With this in mind, we developed Twitter content to celebrate the first day of summer and from that brief came the realization that Porsche paint colors sound a lot like ice cream flavors. This led to a Twitter concept for National Ice Cream Day featuring a car-shaped ice cream pop.
Building on the concept and acknowledging the brand-forward creativity, the brand aligned to make it real.
The result showcased the thousands of Porsche colors with custom ice cream pops that exactly match five real Porsche colors: Strawberry Red, Mint Green, Macadamia Metallic, Lime Gold Metallic and Frozen Berry Metallic. With an on-site event, Twitter content activation and contracted influencers, every aspect of the campaign sought to bring awareness to the variety of Porsche colors, while still maintaining the fun of the #NationalIceCreamDay moment.
For the activation, to maintain brand relevancy while building on to how Porsche is creatively set apart from other auto competitors, “the Agency” identified two key objectives to achieve:
Porsche has thousands of custom paint colors, many of which sound just like ice cream flavors. So we worked closely to identify a partner who not only has a shared passion for the brand, but was as dedicated to creating a product that looks to deliver the same craftmanship as Porsche. We found that in Dana Cree of Pretty Cool Ice Cream who worked to create custom pops that exactly matched five of the Porsche paint colors. All of these were hand-dipped and hand-wrapped to ensure each pop met expectations.
Leading up to launch and to tie into conversations around the National Ice Cream Day (July 17, 2022), Porsche Twitter shared a tweet teasing how Porsche paint colors sound pretty similar to ice cream flavors. At the same time, to build momentum on launch day, “the Agency” and Brand teams engaged media outlets spanning auto, trade, food and local Chicago media. A custom press release under embargo was shared containing details about the Porsche x Pretty Cool partnership with quotes from Ayesha Coker, vice president of marketing at Porsche Cars North America, in addition to a quote from Dana Cree, founder of Pretty Cool Ice Cream. The embargo on media lifted the week leading up to National Ice Cream Day and Porsche Twitter shared custom GIFs of each flavor, in addition to details about where followers can get their first taste for National Ice Cream Day.
On the actual event day, Porsche Twitter also shared out real-time content captures of the Porsche x Pretty Cool event in Chicago and monitored conversations in real-time for further engagement opportunities. The event also looked to build engagement with event signage around the pop-up, photo opportunities with a specially wrapped Porsche 911 ice cream “truck,” custom photobooth, and geo-tagged Snapchat filter to play with for those waiting in line. Additional social support was also provided by three lifestyle and culinary influencers and brand enthusiasts, Wells Adams, Bachelor reality TV star, Chef Chris Cosentino, and Chef Sean Brock, who were offered a first taste of the ice cream flavors and shared their real-time reactions on social.
Following the event, to engage followers who were not able to make it in person, Porsche Twitter also ran a sweepstakes on Twitter for additional custom ice cream kits.
Objective 1: Create an ownable physical and virtual event that builds conversation on brand messaging (by 15%) without focusing on product sales.
Objective 2: Break through cluttered #NationalIceCreamDay brand activations by driving engagements from local event attendees and global social followers (min. 3% engagement rate).
Result: With more than 1,200 event attendees and over 500 entries into the owned Porsche social sweepstakes, the #PorschexPrettyCool partnership was set apart from other #NationalIceCreamDay partnerships and allowed fans and followers from both the local event and social space to participate. Content from owned channels and partner channels averaged above overall engagement rate and saw over 90% positive sentiment, with users sharing their own suggestions for ice cream flavors the brand should make next.
