ond year in a row, IDFA helped the industry celebrate National Ice Cream Month using social media to promote the fun and enjoyment of eating ice cream and to boost ice cream consumption. At the beginning of July, IDFA launched an ice cream photo contest on Instagram, an online image-sharing service that enables users to take photographs and videos and share them on mobile devices. IDFA also posted ice cream-related photos and messages on Twitter and Facebook and shared messages posted online by International Ice Cream Association (IICA) member companies and other ice cream fans.
“The goal of all our National Ice Cream Month activities was to get as many people as possible talking about their enjoyment of ice cream and to reinforce the marketing efforts of member companies,” said Peggy Armstrong, IDFA vice president for communications.
In addition to increasing online chatter significantly about ice cream, IDFA conducted its second annual survey of IICA companies to identify consumer trends about ice cream. More than 60 news outlets, including radio, television, online and print, covered the results.
Under the headline “Congress members reach bipartisan agreement — they like ice cream,” The Washington Post featured an online photo album showing legislators enjoying ice cream at IDFA’s Capitol Hill Ice Cream Party on June 20. Kicking off the month, The Post also ran a full-page infographic on ice cream, which included several fun facts from IDFA’s ice cream media kit.
The TODAY Show contacted IDFA for background and devoted a five-minute segment to new and unusual ice cream flavors and asked followers to post photos of themselves and friends celebrating National Ice Cream Month; hundreds of people participated. Regional radio shows in Kentucky, Minnesota and North Dakota featured interviews with Armstrong discussing the ice cream survey and National Ice Cream Month.
“We garnered great coverage from several of the most visited media outlets in the country,” said Armstrong. “Even the White House joined in the fun by posting a photo of President Obama enjoying a bowl of ice cream and wishing the nation a happy National Ice Cream Day on July 21.”
