In the words of Ben & Jerry's Retail Operations Director, Debra Heintz, “Jerry and Ben started their first Free Cone Day as a thank you to their customers. It’s cool, we get to continue the peace, love and FREE ice cream tradition every year across the world.” Heintz is talking about Ben & Jerry's Annual Free Cone Day that was celebrated today.
Ben & Jerry's promotes Free Cone Day as more than just a chance to get a free scoop of ice cream. Ben & Jerry's locations (called Scoop Shops) go all out on Free Cone Day with celebrity appearances (some of them scooping ice cream), music, entertainment, social mission partner participation and more surprises throughout the day.
I have to give props to Ben & Jerry's for continuing Free Cone Day each year. In 2007, the company gave away one million free ice cream cones on Free Cone Day. That's a lot of ice cream cones!
Clearly, Free Cone Day drives a lot of store traffic with the hope that many of those visitors will turn into repeat customers. Ben & Jerry's is celebrating its 30th birthday this year, and Free Cone Day continues to be a huge promotional event for the company each year.
I'd be very curious to know exactly how much those 1,000,000 free cones cost Ben & Jerry's. Anyone know or want to hazard a guess? Regardless, I still think Free Cone Day is a great promotion. I wish there was a Ben & Jerry's near me!
» Baskin-Robbins Retailates Against Ben and Jerry's Free Cones from MarketingBlurb
No one knows for sure (except the powers that be at Baskin-Robbins, but the home of 31-Flavors appears to have retaliated against Ben and Jerry's Free Cone promotion (you can read more about that in my post yesterday, Peace, Love... [Read More]
Tracked on: April 30, 2008 9:53 PM | Permalink to Trackback