Sweet Memories

Skinny Cow has found the perfect event for consumers to sample its ice cream.

It is the only food brand that has a booth at scrapbook conventions where 50,000 to 75,000 mostly middle-aged women spend $2.5 billion a year on supplies to turn their photo albums into crafty masterpieces.

Dreyer’s, the parent company of Skinny Cow, itself a division of Nestlé, stumbled on scrapbooking last year when its agency, Alcone Marketing, researched ways to reach moms 25 to 54 with high household incomes. They learned that scrapbookers often gather for “crop” parties to work on albums together — and snack.

“It’s kind of an underground society,” says Ray Gottschalk, Alcone’s senior vice president and group account director. “Unless you’re close to it, you don’t really realize how big it is.”

Scrapbookers are also known to frequent chat Web sites and often swap advice — a ripe environment for word-of-mouth.

“This is one of those products that girlfriends tell other girlfriends about,” says Diane McIntyre, a spokesperson for Dreyer’s. “It’s a perfect fit for us because the women involved in scrapbooking are always doing it with other people.”

So Dreyer’s signed a deal with CK Media, which publishes Creating Keepsakes and Simple Scrapbook magazines, to run its sampling oasis at 12 conventions and training “universities” last year. Skinny Cow’s dollar share rose 2% in the 10 markets where it sampled, according to Alcone.

This year Skinny Cow will go to 15 conventions in 15 markets, and has signed with Scrapbook Expo to sample ice cream at four of its shows in markets that CK Media doesn’t cover. Dreyer’s is looking at other “passion pods” to sample hobbyists.

“We’re considering going into some other areas, but for now, we’ve got so many more scrapbookers to reach, we want to play that out,” McIntyre said.

Skinny Cow positions itself as “the Ice Cream of the Crop.” It also gets access to CK’s database to e-mail offers and coupons, as well as coverage in the magazine.

“We want people putting the ice cream out when they host a crop party,” Gottschalk says.

Coupon redemption has topped 8.7%, a strong return for highly targeted sampling, which typically yields around 6%.

This year, Dreyer’s expands the campaign with a “Queen of the Crop” contest. The winners will be published in CK Media’s magazines.

Entrants submit page designs in three categories: Best Girls’ Night Out, Best Crop Party and Best Scrapbook Convention. The entries get extra points if they work Skinny Cow into the design.

The winner in each category gets a digital camera and printer, plus publication in the magazines. Ten winners per category get a year’s supply of Skinny Cow snacks. The contest runs through July. The judging panel includes “scrapbooking celebrities” familiar to fans on the convention circuit, Gottschalk says.

The promotions supplement the $4 million that Dreyer’s spent on media advertising for Skinny Cow last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

The campaign has spawned at least one new scrapbooker. Alcone’s group creative director, Luis Camano, took a scrapbooking class as he prepared to pitch the idea to Dreyer’s. The professional artist was pretty proud of his pages, but the teacher wasn’t: She told him he needed more layers.

SCRAPBOOK SNAPSHOT

• There are 32 million scrapbookers in the U.S.
• Spending on scrapbooking supplies topped $2.55 billion in 2004
• There’s at least one scrapbooker in nearly 25% of U.S. households
• The hobby is most popular in Western states, averaging 26% to 31% of households
• Most scrapbookers are women 30 to 50, with a college education; nearly half of them work full-time
• Thirty-nine percent of scrapbookers have been involved in the hobby for five years or more
• About 75% of scrapbookers spend at least $25 a month on supplies
• The average value of a scrapbooker’s gear is $1,853
• About 75% of scrapbookers have a room or space in their home dedicated to the hobby

Source : Alcone Marketing

Case study: Leveraging Sponsorships to Reach Youth www.thepromoevent.com