Last Friday, in the Geneva Airport on my way to Barcelona I came across Unilever’s newest launch, the Café Zero, a mix between an ice cream and a coffee-flavored drink! According to Unilever, Café Zero is the first drinkable ice cream and incorporates a new ice-cream technology.
The new product comes in three flavors – espresso, cappuccino and mocaccino – in 200ml coffee-cup style packaging. Coffee drinks like the Emmi Café Latte (a ready-to-drink cold coffee) have been very successful in Switzerland, and this product is very similar, only FROZEN! Additionally, Unilever is using small freezers to create a secondary point-of-sale and communicate the new idea behind the product.
From my point of view a very smart move. Milkshakes, Frappes or the American Slush Puppie, are all some sort of drinkable ice-cream. Why shouldn’t ice-cream be drunk? With this move Unilever tackles ice-cream’s biggest competitor, refreshments, and will generate a new source of growth for its ice-cream division.
This could be the start to a new segment in ice-cream consumption. Why be happy with water-ice-cream when you can enjoy all the richness of ice-cream also in a drinkable format? Why not consider a frozen drink instead of a standard refreshment? Are we to see a manufactured version of the traditional home-made frappe with new unforeseen flavours? The key to success will be the products perception to quench thirst, good mouth-feel sensation and great taste.
The choice of the coffee flavor from Unilever is also very smart. With consumers used at the Starbucks Frappuccino-style drinks, setting up a new category will not require a lot of consumer teaching.
Lets now see how competition reacts!
No comments:
Post a Comment